The thought I had to fight most was the one where I knew it was important to me to look good when I went to the hospital; I wanted to look out-of-this-world. I hadn’t felt like this since I went to the school disco in the parish hall! I picked a sober black trouser suit from the Magee collection and a soft red jumper that I had to pull from its tissue paper. Red was still my colour and it gave me some sort of life as it bounced against the white of my skin. I wiped a lot of the make-up off and brushed my hair again.

–  How do I look?

–  Fine, Ma, just fine!

–  And remember, do NOT tell your sister! Later is always time enough for lousy news! Especially when it’s Serena!

I smiled as all their eyes followed me to the hall. I had told them to get on with the feeding and milking while I went alone to find out how their father was. I stuffed a pair of dangerously high-heeled black boots in a bag while I rooted around for my wellies. The hall mirror let me know I didn’t look half bad for a hard-worked mother of five.

I set off early so that I could drop into Mammy’s and explain the situation. She was all questions and hand-wringing and Ave Marias and asking me about money, which I had plenty of, but the purse was still opened with a maximum of fuss.

The bus was set up exactly as it was in my time. The loud, pretty children sat at the back, safe in their numbers. The bespectacled and greasy few sat here and there in the middle of the bus and the workers sat at the front. The only thing that was different was the fact that the uniforms were mixed now – there no longer was a bus just for Catholics and another one just for Protestants. Public transport was shared since peace broke out: one giant leap for Northern Irish mankind.

As Carncloon rolled away I realised how much everything else had changed too. The same green fields, the same tumbledown stone walls and the same derelict cottages now had Dallas-style houses sitting back from the road with pillars at the gate. Some of them hadn’t even bothered to hang a curtain to hide the perfect cream interiors.

I walked into the hospital and found the ward, already feeling sick from the smell of disinfectant and what it was devised to mask. The Sister asked me to wait – my husband was in the bed that had the curtains round it, could I just wait a few minutes more so that the nursing staff could finish their jobs?

–  Is he bad, y’know? Badly cut or what?

–  You’d hardly know by looking at him that there was much wrong, God bless him anyhow!