He would never be mine. The second-worst bout of bronchitis I had ever suffered followed on her heels and I was pinned to my bed for a fortnight. I washed the black and red antibiotics down with mouthfuls of Benylin and never refused a hot toddy of whiskey when John offered it at night. Daddy came with a half bottle of medicinal poteen that was supposed to be rubbed on my chest but I drank it as well, punched with plenty of sugar. I reckoned the best way to survive was to stay drunk. Mammy didn’t come at all; she was busy cleaning as she’d got herself back on the list to hold the Stations of the Cross at The Hill. Net curtains don’t bleach themselves, y’know?

I drifted in and out of sleep to find John sitting beside me in the armchair, his eyes just shadows. I wished he’d ask me how I was. I’m torn in two. Half of me is with her, the other half is here with him and everything we’ve made together. But he didn’t ask and I didn’t tell.

Bridie told me she’d found him crying in the orchard. She’d not seen him crying since he came home from England that time. He was never able to cope with loss, she says. He’s softer than he lets on, she says, as if that makes it any easier on me. The bed under the barn eaves fairly reeked of booze and misery by the time I emerged a few weeks later into what I hoped would be a tolerably new world.

It wasn’t, of course. Northern Ireland was still bubbling away but among the reports on 300-pound, 500-pound and even bigger bombs the news was eaten up by the talk of talks. The SDLP’s John Hume and Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams were centre stage because they had reached an agreement; they had a vague way forward and everyone was sitting up and paying attention. John Major seemed to be doing his best to listen – I’d always had a soft spot for him since he kindly mentioned that we were British citizens too and imagine the outcry if people in Surrey or Sheffield took to murdering each other in the streets over political differences? The talks didn’t stop the IRA or the UDA from killing some more civilians: old habits die hard.