The newspapers had stories of girls who had done that and not many of them bled to death although one of them had and the poor little baby had died of cold in a graveyard somewhere in the Republic. I vaguely thought that Auntie Eileen would take ‘it’; she loved children but she couldn’t get any more because men who liked the look of her didn’t like the look of our poor Bernie. She could finally have a little girl who could talk! She would love that!

When I realised that I had allowed ‘it’ to turn into a girl I ran all the way out of The Hill and down the back lane, past Mrs Johns’s half-door and all the way to the big pool of deep water where the Cloon arced towards town. I knelt on the bank and stuck my whole head under the icy rush to see if I could clear it. I needed to be able to think even if it was only for five minutes.

I was blue-lipped and shivering when I finally ran out of time and had to sit up gulping and gulping for air. That’s when I saw John Johns standing on the high ditch of the river field but he didn’t move a muscle as I jumped up and nearly went arse over in the mud.

Should I say hello? Tell him not to worry? Tell him I’m not trying to do away with myself? Then I remember that he doesn’t give a bucky for me or my troubles. He’s known for being level-headed, a safe pair of hands. The man every other man calls on in an emergency. He’s only ever going to think that I’m a halfwit, a halfwit who doesn’t have enough sense to jump straight into the Cloon and float away as far as it flows before it’s too late. If only he would say one word – just a ‘hello’ would take the sting out – but he doesn’t.

My only option was to act as if nothing at all was strange. I stood a minute to squeeze the water from my hair, just a nice normal girl on a nice normal outing to cool herself down before slowly turning for home. Halfway up the field, the marsh marigolds all sunny in their butter yellow, I checked if he was still there and he was, his big dark silent shape picked out against the thin blue sky, unmoved. I took off like a hare, any hope of a dignified retreat down the pan as I stumbled and scrambled away. I should have known I’d not be able to dodge Mrs Johns twice in a day. She was at the half-door begging me to come in.