Bridie found poor auld Brandy dog dead under his favourite tree. He got to live his life, she said and make it to being an old man. His head was on his paws as if he was only asleep. John put him under the ground where he lay and we dragged a big granite slab over the clay to mark another sadness. The children broke their hearts over it and we bent the house rules such as they were and let them all jump in the bed with us that night. Me, him and Bridie all gave up on sleep around 5am. We met in the kitchen and toasted Brandy dog with a whiskey as the sky glowed orange over Sessiagh.

The SDLP’s John Hume and Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams issued their first joint statement. The IRA voiced their concerns via the Gaelic newspaper An Phoblacht, urging the British government to stop its futile and costly war in Ireland and pursue the path of peace or resign itself to the path of war.

–  Didn’t they just bomb the bejesus out of London?

–  They did, says John.

–  And cause millions of pounds’ worth of damage?

–  They did, says John again.

We still weren’t chatty but the boys and Serena filled the house with laughter and light that was hard to block out. We spoke through them and about them. They meant the world to the both of us so we got used to having common ground to stand on. Thoughts of an existence outside the madness of Northern Ireland still intruded with every death reported but inside the border of Johns Farm, a kind of peace descended as we did our best to give the children and Bridie a happy, natural life. Some days I had a job reminding myself that I was unhappy, that really I should be somewhere else.

There would, it seemed, be no more children because without any discussion John started using condoms. I could hardly tell him that I loved being pregnant, that I loved babies. They were the only thing I had ever produced which made me feel as if I was worth something. But if I exposed myself like that, John would be within his rights to point out our deal didn’t extend to me having what I wanted. I had been taken on to provide him with what he wanted and when. Worse still, I missed the silken nakedness of him more than I cared to admit.

Much, much worse than even that, John learned to talk so that he could lecture me. I was failing him again, falling short of some standard he had set. His family was complete now so it was time I went back to the world, the world I had been so furious to give up. It was his only song and he had it on repeat.