With Eileen, Kathleen and Bernie to take over the feeding and milking, Daniel and Shane went off to see their father. Matthew came to help the women and Daddy walked around the end of the house with his pipe in his teeth and parked himself in front of the range. He asked Eileen how I was doing and I heard her tell him that I would live to fight another day. Grand, grand, he says. He put a half bottle of medicinal poteen on the kitchen table and Kathleen carried it to me in mugs of hot water and sugar ’til I was punch-drunk. He brought the other half when he was told I was knocking it back like tap water and crying out for more. Ginger crept in and slept beside me, purring like an engine because the heat off me was raging through the whole bed.

Mammy drifted in and out of the feverish proceedings, tutting and sucking her dentures at the end of my bed. She was at a loss as to why I was such an attention-seeker when there was a good farm to run. I would never learn when I was well off.

–  I hope the door doesn’t hit her too hard on the arse on the way out, says Eileen.

After another week, Eugene and Marius thought it was safe enough to leave the hospital. Eileen made dinner to welcome them home and when I sat with my plate of lovely golden chips swimming in salt and vinegar in my lap and my boys all sitting around my bed to keep me company, flowers on the stand from Serena, I felt that I was going to make it somehow.

Johns Farm hadn’t killed me, it had only fenced me in while I grew up. I saw the faultlines develop in the story that I had told myself from day one, the sad story of poor abandoned me. I’d had myself on repeat talking nonsense for years. I was well off, well cared for and well loved. There were worse men than John Johns, a lot worse. I knew he would not use his body as a weapon if there was no other way to hurt me.

There’s no point in dwelling on the past: it’s gone, gone forever, never to be revisited. Bridie had never preached at me about life but she had shown me the way. Get up every morning, get to your work, do the best you can for your waynes, see your man for the catch he is, take everything else with a pinch of salt and a side order of good strong tea and plenty of biscuits.