Maybe it was because Jacques was more manly, someone who didn’t give a fig for the Six Counties, the sickening see-saw of them and us? He was lighting a cigarette. He blew the smoke up and away but it blew back. His hair flickered around his face. He picked at a bit of loose tobacco which was on his tongue. His tongue, my tongue. My God. For a second that rush ran through me again. What had he done to me? I hugged myself tight and started to look around. How long had we been there? I couldn’t grasp the time. I thought I might cry. But something between my legs was still happy, still open. I had been touched. I was a woman at last.

–  Your boyfriend, ’e doesn’t have to know, yes?

–  Joe?

–  Joe, yes. His loss is my gain, I think, Merise?

I wanted to run but women don’t run so I walked away without even saying goodnight. I was already cheekier and it had only been minutes! Joe would never know. He hadn’t made it to the gardens so he wouldn’t know if I had been there or not. I’d say I’d set out and then got frightened. I hadn’t waited long, it was cold. I knew somehow, somehow that he wasn’t coming. I wouldn’t tell a soul. Not even Lizzie Magee. Never.

She would kill me anyway; she would kill me just for looking at Jacques! She thought she loved him. Imagine what she would do if she knew I’d tasted his tobacco? Christ alive, she’d stone me in the street! I consoled myself with thoughts of secrets. I was an expert at secrets, even better than I was at kissing. I had been taught by the best. I was trained from the cradle to keep quiet. I would take it to my grave.

I closed the big monastery door on the night and felt the relative warmth of the old flagstones as I tiptoed back to my life. Lizzie Magee was asleep! Miracles do happen! She’d swore she’d stay up ’til I got back but she didn’t stir even when I put the light out. I pulled off her red dress in the bathroom. The rubber johnny fell on the floor, intact. I put it in the bin. I wanted to wash myself. I looked in the mirror: my lips were swollen and I liked the look in my eyes. I wasn’t totally ugly. I wasn’t nothing any more.

I knew what the big fuss was about. I knew it didn’t hurt and I knew that no one in my class would know that French boys liked to do kissing way south of the border, properly in bandit country! I didn’t know anybody else who could dream about those things! I was clever now. I knew I’d never get caught. Never.