When I jolted awake later that afternoon the suitcase was standing by my bed. I’d never had a suitcase before. I’d never been anywhere except Gortnahook. I had to open it. Inside was my toiletry bag and my clothes in their various shades of navy and white. I took them all out and put them on the bed. There was a brand-new towel, bath-size, and two brand-new flannels. What a treat! I put my unopened Camay soap on top of them and my toothbrush. Blue Ted was lying face down in the bottom.

I dearly wanted to scrub myself clean but there was no running water at Johns Farm, and no bath. How would I wash? Where would I launder my clothes? What would I do with myself all day without school for a whole term? How would I read a book in a house with no electricity?

I stripped off and changed into my jeans, a T-shirt and boots. An ex-bride, I balled up the itchy pink suit and the stupid pink slippers and wrapped the white tights round them to make sure they’d never escape, then I closed the case and slid it under the bed. I hung up my things on the wire hangers in the wardrobe and shoved Blue Ted to the back of the shelf. Unless he had a ticket to America stitched inside his belly, he’d be no use to me in the days to come.

Joe hadn’t even tried to find me. How did he feel knowing that I had been with someone else, someone that I had to admit didn’t force me? How had I gone from being his back to being nothing so quickly?

Bridie was waiting for me, wringing her hands, just outside the door. She was still crying. What a sweetheart! I had so often thought it would be lovely to have a mammy like her and now I did. I hugged her close and told her that it would all be okay. Not to cry. I called her Bridie to her face for the first time. Bridie, put the kettle on and make us both a nice cup of good strong tea.

She was right: I would be grand, given time. I knew I had to be punished. Tramps have to pay. Auntie Eileen was still paying. I could go home sometime, not like Sean McCourt who only sold a Gaelic newspaper, the printed voice of Sinn Féin. He was never going home. Try as I might, I still felt sorrier for myself than him. I was a hateful girl.