As luck would have it Lizzie Magee was home again. John called her Saint Lizzie, short for Saint Lizzie of the Polished Nails, and she was going to have to stop guffawing every time he said it or I’d punch her. Her behaviour around dishy men hadn’t improved much since we were girls, she still had no idea when to back off.

I’d made a fairly good job of myself. Being such a natural person himself, John doesn’t like too much make-up so I concentrate on my hair, brushing it until it shines and trying not to notice the silver streaks. I’m still lean as a greyhound even though I eat like a horse, something that makes Lizzie rage. She watches me put on a slick of red lipstick.

–  I actually fucking hate you, Mary Rattigan! Have you a portrait in the attic or wha’?

–  There might be an auld Polaroid curling up somewhere now!

She was ensconced at the kitchen table, dressed to the nines and in full make-up. Just seeing her pick her way from the hire car through the cowshit was enough to keep me going for another year. She was full of chat. I dreaded it as much as I loved it, yearned for it, for her company and her stories. She had a habit of bringing me stones from lands I would never walk on and she handed me one as she talked. She’d been to Namibia this time – in Africa, as she kept telling me, as if I mightn’t know.

She told me about the colours: pink, orange, the bluest sky she’d ever seen, the blackest sky at night, the brightest stars, the dust, and the light, ah, the light. It seemed to have got inside her, opened up a huge space inside where colours were brighter and more vivid than it seemed possible, it shone from behind her eyes. I was glad, Lizzie had been having a bad time of it recently.

Auntie Eileen bowled in, a bottle under each arm and a bag of crisps in each hand. She was rarin’ to go, this was going to be her lucky night. She wanted to come home with a rich farmer under her belt. We laughed and drank as if we didn’t have a care in the world between us. John found us like that, squealing and teary-eyed, and he just shook his head and carried on to the bedroom to get changed. I knew he was smiling. It had been too long since the house had heard a bit of happiness.