Now he was back, he had two things on his mind: food and a better house for Serena and Bridie. That’s how he announced it. I didn’t figure in the plans, presumably because I wasn’t young, I wasn’t old and he felt no responsibility for me so I could fend for myself. Serena had all but abandoned me to stick close to his legs anywhere he went; she was not going to risk letting him out of her sight again. I missed her and tried to block out how much I wanted another child. It was my every waking thought. But it takes a husband to give you a baby and all I had was John Johns.

Auntie Eileen had asked me if ‘things’ were alright and I had nodded and said sure. She was likely at a loss as to how I’d got myself knocked up so easy when I shouldn’t have and now that I was safely married to a stud there was no sign of another bump in the road.

He had a plan to sell off the herd for now; they were bringing in nothing anyway. He was thinking of switching from milk to beef; he might even squeeze a new huge barn for bullocks alongside Matthew’s chicken house up at The Hill if Frank was amenable. My heart broke. He was selling my Ladies?

Then I heard the second part of the grand plan. He was going to make the barn part of the house. THE BARN? He had seen something along this line in England and it didn’t seem to bother him that we would all be the laughing stock of the town. This was the kind of scandal that would be broadcast to all and sundry; my mother’s head might well pop clean off her neck when she’d done sending up novenas for the return of his common sense.

Roll up! Roll up! Meet the Johns family: Poor Bridie, the Tramp Rattigan, her little bastard and the priest’s son all living in a barn, happily ever after. I was so angry I didn’t speak when he mentioned it first. If it wasn’t for the blissful thought that I was about to be returned to a house with running water and electricity and a FLUSHING TOILET, I might have huffed and puffed until the next Christmas. We would all have to live in a big caravan while the renovation took place. Great, it would be like Bundoran without the candyfloss! I was still stewing when he spoke.

–  Do you have anything to say about these plans, Mary?

–  It’s your house not mine!

–  You may have noticed that you live here too?

–  That doesn’t make it my house!

–  Well now! I’m sorry I tried to drag you back to life and all its tedious details! Will you miss carrying water from the well, tell me?

–  No.