We have to be outside the granite walls of Johns Farm, have to be away from its street, before we can relax in each other’s company. He hates how I can drift off when I have the four walls of Johns Farm as my horizon; I’ve been caught a few too many times just staring. Then he’ll snap at me and I jump to, embarrassed. Outside we can be companionable. As we move together cutting the corners on the golden bags of wheat, we never speak, we don’t need to we’ve done it so often, muscle memory. We let the dusty cows nudge us this way and that in the fading light and some of its golden peace falls on both our shoulders. But we always have to go home.

Shane went off to university in the September – only to Belfast, thank God. Johns Farm seemed to be expanding: walking across the big concrete floor took an age. The stairs were as steep as the road to The Hill. Every bedroom gaped empty, the blue roses in Bridie’s room lost their charm but I couldn’t find the strength to paper over them. We got through the winter with just Daniel to keep us company, but the atmosphere in the kitchen had our son running for his bedroom. We spoke through him, pulling him between us ’til he frowned at us to be left alone.

Spring came as a relief, with endless work and toil needed to get the farm ready for another year, but by summer we were scratchy again and worn. In desperation, Daniel told us to GET OUT, we needed to get out more! We were driving him potty and that’s how we came to agree – reluctantly – that we’d have another night in the Long Lounge. And we’d do it before the other three boys all came home that weekend.

I called Auntie Eileen to make sure I’d have someone to talk to when we got there. I’d already spent a few nights in there watching other women pant over my husband as he went to the bar, stopping here and there to chat. The way their eyes followed him around the room made me fume. Once, a drunk girl had even pulled him up out of his seat and on to the dance floor and I’d had to sit with my face on fire as they lurched about. She did her best to get her arms around his neck, the better to get her boobs on his chest, but he’d managed to keep hold of her hands right up until she just threw shame out the door and wrapped herself around his waist. She was nothing short of a T.R.A.M.P.