John asked me every week if I needed anything but I always said no. The only thing I dearly wanted was something money couldn’t buy: another baby. I’d never recovered from thinking of myself as a charity case. I didn’t need many clothes; I didn’t go anywhere. I’d a pair of wellies that would last me another five years. My hair was long enough to be nearly straight; I wore a lick of mascara for Mass. Eileen and Kathleen always got me bath stuff for my birthday.

He shopped for all our food as I still had no love for Carncloon and its broken windows and British soldiers. The box of groceries was left on the table every Friday evening and had the Sunday joint wedged in between the few things we didn’t grow – some coffee, loose tea, flour and sugar, Bridie’s dried prunes.

The waynes got an auld KitKat or a Turkish Delight for a treat once a week. Bridie got a bar of Fry’s Chocolate Cream that she split with me when all five of the hallions were finally in bed and we had our aching feet up in front of the range. I always got a bag of candy but when John treated me to a quarter of cherry drops I had to tell him that I didn’t really like them.

He was astounded by the fact that I, Mary Margaret Johns, had been bettered by a boiled sweet and promised he would bring no more. Would he be safe enough if he stuck to humbugs and pear drops? Yes, he would. His gast was flabbered that he hadn’t known that the taste of cherries made me sick.

The sun rose and him and me rose with it. We always had a half hour in the kitchen alone together before the day got under way. I’d get the range up to boil the kettle and we’d have mugs of tea and lumps of buttered scone, now and again with an egg, other times with jam. We might go over what one or other of the children had said, whether or not they needed anything, or we might not.

Bridie waited to hear the thud of the half-door before she got up and stirred the waynes. He’d turn out our wellies in case there was a mouse in them or a spider and we’d pull them on and wander down to feed the cows.

On a good morning there were no sirens, no Chinooks churning up the air above us. We watched the yellow light widen across the Cloon Valley a thousand times. I loved that view; it was something for us both to focus on and we always rested for a moment as one before he unlatched the wooden gate on the river field to let it swing open to start the day.