The Provos killed two more RUC officers in Ballygawley, County Tyrone and totally flattened the barracks by planting a bomb right inside it. Bridie and me listened to the wireless; she sighed and rolled her eyes as I tried to keep up with the marbles being thrown underfoot by the SDLP, the UUP, the DUP, Sinn Féin, the Alliance Party. It didn’t take too many minutes to figure out who was at the front, shouting the loudest. It was everyone’s favourite Man of God, the Reverend Ian Paisley, and the Democratic Unionist Party.

The walls of Johns Farm stayed put, the red tin roof stayed on and Bridie and me gave up on the wireless because it made our heads ache, relying instead on any pundits who stopped by for tea to fill us in on the latest screaming match. None of them could see a way out or through it, bad things happen when the Northern Irish are invited to ‘talk’, we were better suited to roaring and shouting and banging our fists on tables: that way none of us could be heard, nothing could be resolved and we could all accuse each other of collusion.

John had stayed away the whole year and would probably have gone again if it had not been for his reunion with Serena. We knew the date – December 23rd, he wanted to be home for her third birthday – but we didn’t tell her: she would be up to high doh with excitement and probably down with a temperature before we got the pan on!

I had a kind of strange fear in the pit of my stomach. When he was back I would have to watch myself – my daddy’s only advice: watch yourself, watch yourself. I’d have to share Serena with him again after she’d come back to me body and soul. I’d have to take advice on what to do with Johns Farm. I was a good farmer now, in tune with the herd, my Ladies, who walked to me like lambs as soon as I opened the river-field gate. I’d pulled calves from them, wormed them, dosed them for liver fluke. They got better care than I gave myself: more love. My plan was to present myself as a girl who had done a lot of growing up in his absence.