–  Joe Loughrey has been sent away to his uncle in America, went this very happy mornin’. Your father just got it straight from the horse’s mouth at the surgery. And as for you, you’re to be married – this Saturday, in fact, which will give us just enough time to find some clothes to throw on you and might even mask that you’re way too far gone to be married in a chapel, but Father O’Brien is willing so why not? He’s even going to skip the reading of the banns.

–  What do you mean, he’s away to America?

–  Just that. The doctor and his perfect wife thought that he would be better away. A sure sign he’s as guilty as sin! But no matter. Put Joe Loughrey out of your mind; he’s obviously not thinkin’ of doin’ the decent thing and it’ll be too late for you before he comes to his senses.

–  How can I marry Joe Loughrey if he’s already gone? Where’s Daddy?

–  Never mind cryin’ for your daddy! Do you think he wants anything to do with you? You are gettin’ married … and this Saturday coming, no other day and no more delay.

–  Who’s going to marry me?

–  Well now, the real boy next door, John Johns himself!

Ordinarily she would have stuck around to enjoy how flummoxed I was but she was too busy. Shotgun weddings don’t arrange themselves, y’know?

Blood hammered at my ears and roared around my head, getting hotter and hotter with every circuit. Thoughts of Joe scalded, thoughts of John blistered; every member of my family floated by to drop burning embers on my skin. Even Bridie stood in the shadows with a branding iron. I thought I would melt from the heat.

John Johns had been called to kill a calf at The Hill a week ago. It had been born with its guts all outside its body. I wasn’t supposed to see it but I couldn’t stay away. She was beautiful, a roan heifer, her soft hooves destined never to harden. Her mother called out from where she was tied up in the next stall, swollen with milk that wouldn’t stop coming. He stepped past her with his bolt gun and the poor little thing was dead in a minute. Was I nothing more than the next ruptured animal on his list?