He was going to marry me? ME? A knocked-up girl he looked down on when there were a hundred women like moths smashing their faces against the light from his Tilley lamp and him oblivious to the stench of burning wings. He must have chosen to do this; Daddy would never have asked, Sadie neither. I realised it must have been Bridie; she must have begged him to step in for now to help the scandal blow over.

I would have to get to John Johns and talk sense to him. Didn’t he understand that he was spoiling his own chances of a proper marriage? I could get married again if I abandoned my faith; I could cross over and turn to be a Protestant divorcee otherwise how would Joe and me manage when we made up?

No one came to rescue me. I hadn’t really believed for a second that they would. I had already been dealt with. The decent thing was about to be done. I was only a prisoner ’til then. Then I would run. I would run from the chapel if I had to, oh Yes Siree Bob! Wouldn’t that be a nice little bit of icing on the cake? After Mammy had dropped the bomb of John Johns, I begged Mick to get Kathleen or Eileen. A red welt below his left eye let me know he’d been caught on the phone. My sister and my aunt came together on the Thursday night and battled through to my bedside. All three of us pretended we couldn’t hear the abuse that trailed them up the stairs. I had been made by them, she roared, and now look at the mess I was in. Pah! I was their doing, not hers.

I don’t know what I thought they would do or could do and they only had another whole day to do it in. But they were both too upset to think straight. They checked and double-checked that no rape had occurred, no drugging, no blackouts or other fits or seizures that might account for the fact that I had ruined myself. When they finally understood that I was to blame, that I’d been awake, that I was complicit, they had nothing to say, no words of comfort.

–  What possessed you? Kathleen cries. Now you’re never going to be able to leave this bloody place!

–  Mary, I can’t imagine what you were thinking, Eileen wails.

Why couldn’t she, at least, understand that I had been thinking after a fashion. I’d been thinking this is the first chance I’ve had in sixteen years to do what I want. I’d been thinking I wanted to know what making love felt like. I’d been thinking that being joined to someone else would stop me from floating up out of my body. I’d been thinking that just for half an hour I could stop watching myself.