I was formally sent for the next night. I was instructed to make myself look ‘decent’. I didn’t laugh. Daddy, as always, was already in the car waiting. He said nothing when I got in the back. The lush green hedges slid by, a few early lights glowed around the foot of Aghabovey, then we were under the steeple at St Bede’s. We passed the big wooden cross that stood by the entrance to the graveyard. As we drew up outside the black and white parochial house I wished myself asleep again and alone on my side of the bed. A telling-off from Father O’Brien was all I needed. He was from the days when girls like me were disappeared to Dublin and the Magdalene Laundries and often never seen again.

The housekeeper, Mrs Byrne, opened the door and looked at us all like she’d found a dog turd on the step. She stood behind it for protection as she told us to go into the big sitting room at the front: Father would be with us in a moment. But within seconds I saw it was going to be much worse than a sermon from Father O’Brien. Joe was in the big sitting room and so were his parents. Seeing him there, I was suddenly overwhelmed by what I had thrown away; my key, my happy ending, thrown away with both hands.

I stumbled to the chair nearest the door. My face was mottled and so was his; he was hunched over, grinding his teeth to keep from crying, a picture of misery.

Our parents were going through the motions of greeting each other but Mammy was a bit bristly; thinking she had the doctor and his snooty working wife cornered, she tried to get the smug smile off her lips as Father O’Brien came in.

–  Well now, well now, here we are, Doctor …

–  Father …

–  Frank, Sadie …

–  Father …

–  Mrs Loughrey …

–  Father …

Oh, that didn’t please my mother when Joe’s mammy got a ‘Mrs’ and she just got plain old ‘Sadie’! Joe and me didn’t get a greeting of any kind.

–  Well now, well now, this is a very sorry thing, a very sorry thing.

I must be the very sorry thing he was talking about; he was looking straight at me. I pressed my knees and ankles so tight together that I thought the bones would break through. Mrs Byrne wheeled in the hostess trolley and a fruitcake the size of a breeze block. It had a fish picked out in orange and lemon candied peel and a glacé-cherry eye. I was instantly back with Granda Ban at Macroom’s wake: the salmon fisherman who had no option but to breathe in the river he loved. A cloud plump with rain settled over my heart.