I so loved being touched and held. My world and its bother fell away when I was locked against his chest. He was dark like me, but not so nearly black, and where my eyes were grey, his were blue. I’d never be able to give Joe Loughrey up. He would get me out of The Hill and away from Carncloon, away from the Troubles; him and a grammar-school education were the tickets I needed. It was like a winged dream I could hardly wait to fall dead asleep for.

We both knew he had a hard-on because it was held between us but we never let on it was there. I couldn’t stop thinking about it but I couldn’t imagine doing it. My face went on fire and I was convinced that everyone could see inside my head. Maybe even the nuns could see my unclean thoughts running about like Wile E. Coyote after Road Runner?

But more and more, even though I knew I was being bad, I wished Joe Loughrey would put his hands on me, anywhere, everywhere, all over me, inside me. If he ever pushed I would cave in. I was hollow from between my legs to my heart.

We knew what went where from the dismembered body parts in Girls Growing Up when Sister Dolores had braced herself to teach us about reproduction. The picture of the willy was just that: a side-view of a willy by itself on the page, not attached to a body. The outline was solid when it was hanging down but a series of dotted lines had been drawn to indicate how it would get up, so it looked for all the world like it was moving up and down like a pump handle. How do you get on it if it doesn’t stay still? I whispered to Lizzie Magee who’d snorted so loud she was sent out to the Mother Superior’s office to explain her ‘bestial proclivities’.

The wombs floated on the page, the fallopian tubes keeping them aloft. The opening sported one down arrow that said ‘vagina’. I just couldn’t imagine it. The whole act seemed impossible. Mammy avoided all things below-waist. She had tutted when I got my period. I wasn’t to complain as the Virgin Mother Herself would have had to tolerate ‘monthlies’ too. Oh, and I mustn’t use too many sanitary towels, they were very expensive. Don’t bleed on anything; a towel should be put down if I couldn’t be sure. Don’t tell another living soul: disgusting things are best kept to yourself.

Auntie Eileen had bought me a bra after she’d caught me squashing my new boobs down with my palms. The blinking things are going to grow anyway, she said, might as well enjoy them. Anyway it’s lovely being a woman!