When the self-pity washed over me I blamed him for being childish, him for being unreasonable! How could it be my fault what Father Pat O’Connell had said? It was a miracle he had even remembered me. It’s not my fault, I screamed at him without making a sound. He couldn’t hear what I couldn’t voice. I was weary too, but I was weary because I couldn’t stop looking at him. He kept his eyes from me until I let Serena down.

She had to go to the convent for her interview but I couldn’t force myself out of the house and up the lane. She wanted me to come, begged me, but I couldn’t. What would I say to Sister Pious? The thought of walking through the big pillared gates, along the drive and through the glass doors to the assembly hall made me shake.

I’d be walking back to the life I once had when I’d just settled myself in this one. I hunted through my list of sad, sorry excuses for doing nothing but in the end I stuck with my most-used one: I just can’t. Serena hadn’t cried or played up; she just nodded because she still had Dada. Dada was not so accepting.

–  Why can’t you grow up, Mary?

–  You don’t understand …

–  You’re damned right I don’t understand! She needs you today, don’t you care about that? Don’t you want to step up to the plate just once?

–  I just can’t …

Bridie stepped in to get him to drop his voice. The boys were milling about by the doors to the orchard, pretending they weren’t listening. Serena came out, all brushed hair and shiny shoes, and walked past me to take his hand. They walked out of the half-door together but I didn’t wave them off. I couldn’t move because Granny Moo was standing in the shady space between it and the window. Her head was rocking violently from side to side like a metronome, tick, tick, tick, tick.

John didn’t turn back to me in the bedroom. He kept himself to himself both night and day and I knew that I would have to be the one to break cover. Late one summer’s evening, we waded into the water to get the worst of the dust off us after we moved the cattle from the hill field to the river field. I stumbled and soaked myself through a dress that Lizzie had sent from England in the post. A grey cotton thing – to match my eyes, ha ha ha – with tiny pink roses dancing around the hem. It came off over my head as light as a feather as he watched me but he didn’t just watch for long. He picked me up and made for the shade of the big sycamores on the far side.