‘I’ll hand in my notice so,’ Imelda agreed. The shop in Glencarraig was busy all the time, unlike the hardware store, where the hours often dragged. Imelda liked being busy at work. Time went faster.

‘Sure, we’ll make a great team,’ Larry smiled down at her, his brown eyes crinkling, and she thought if she hadn’t lost her heart to Johnny Larkin, he might have been in with a chance. He wasn’t particularly good looking. His smile was lopsided, his nose a tad crooked, and his brown hair floppy, but he had a quiet charm and he was a terrific dancer and Imelda loved to dance. And they had a lot in common, as Imelda was to discover in the weeks and months when they worked side by side in the small grocery store for which he had such plans.

He confided that he would like to have studied accountancy, because he loved working with figures. He’d like to have left Ardcloch and gone to live in Dublin, but that was impossible because he was an only child, and his father had built up the business from a small corner shop that had sold only the basics to a well-stocked extended store, only to die of cancer while still a relatively young man. It was expected, now, that Larry would take it over and run the business, and keep an eye on his mother, who was not in the best of health.

Imelda, who had been totally immersed in her own woes, without much interest in anyone else’s, had realized that Larry was a comrade in arms.

He would listen to her ranting and raving about sharing her room with Granny Dunne, or the utter drudgery of her farm chores, nodding his head in empathy. ‘You’re as trapped as I am, and I’m as trapped as you are. Duty bound, Imelda, that’s us,’ he observed one miserable rainy day as they stood behind the counter looking at the mist rolling in over the hills, obliterating the view, as the rain grew fierce and heavy, battering the plate-glass windows he’d had installed to brighten up the store.

Every Friday when he handed over her pay, he’d treat her to a box of Milk Tray, her absolute favourite chocolates, then he’d bring her dancing on Saturday and Sunday. And so it was they slipped into coupledom. Imelda had allowed Larry to court her in his shy, awkward way, even though he was second best and always would be, and his soft kisses in no way compared to the passion of Johnny Larkin’s. And at the back of her mind she was always hoping that a dishy Sir Galahad would come and rescue her from the dreary drudge of life in the country and whisk her off to the bright lights of the capital.