He knows he’ll never be seen down here in the hollow of Johns Farm doing such a cissy thing so it’s safe enough for him to venture into the kitchen. Serena designed the labels for the jars with a white longhouse with a red tin roof and all the front of the house is covered in red fruits. I finish them off with red gingham cloth covers. Red is still my colour. I’m waiting to hear from a big distributor in Belfast who supplies supermarket chains with ‘niche organic foodstuffs’, or jam as we call it in County Tyrone. It’ll be hard to tell them my plans have changed.

That’s all the postcard said: Mary, I may call that way at some point. John. What if I have to give up my little business and get a job? A job in a shop or a hospital? I’m not qualified. I’ve never worked a day in my life closeted in one of those horrible airless places.

Lizzie Magee will give me pointers on how to survive if that happens. I’m so glad she’ll be home soon, though the last time she was here wasn’t easy on either of us. She wanted to surprise me and she certainly did. She’d found me howling like a banshee in the vegetable patch. Every time I thought about my little Roisin-that-never-was the blue waves of longing would crash over my head and nearly drown me. Lizzie knew about her but I’d never been able to put into words how much I missed her. She had been so real, so complete in my mind, that I could never put her from it.

After a stiff whiskey each, with an even stiffer whiskey chaser, Lizzie found the strength to tell me something, a thing she has wanted to be able to say out loud for what feels like a hundred years. She does know how I feel. She also knows why she’s childless. She’s always known.

She had had an abortion. Dessie had driven her to the boat and given her a handful of money covered in engine oil. She’d never seen so much cash, it must have been a whole month’s takings at the garage. After the terrifying boat ride from Larne to Stranraer and the never-ending coach trip to London overnight, she’d found the place and committed the sin of all sins. All alone with nothing but a packet of painkillers she’d done the return journey in under three days. She forced herself to eat Mars Bars and Twixes at every service station because it was still a day out.