They were gone for hours, hours I spent watching the dust motes spin in the last of the light from the kitchen window. That’s how John Johns found me when he came home, staring into the middle distance. Bridie had left his dinner in the oven – brown fish and spuds. I was to fetch it out and put it on the table for him and not to forget the butter from the cold press and the coleslaw. Only the coleslaw wasn’t burnt. When he ducked to get in through the door he looked put out, like he had forgotten that I now occupied the Lower Room. We stared at each other, perfect strangers. We didn’t even manage a hello.

He sat down at the table, leaving his long legs stretched into the room. As he reached down to the enamel bucket for a mug of water, I got his dinner and put it on the oilcloth in front of him. He looked at it and then back at me and I’d no idea what to do next. A giddy part of me wanted to say bon appétit just for a laugh but I wasn’t sure what would happen if I dared to open my mouth. Something was bubbling inside. Instead I stood there twisting the tea towel around and around my fists, astonished that the thousand songbirds in the trees outside hadn’t held their beaks to hear what our first conversation would be.

He kept his eyes down and I held my breath. We needed to know where the border was drawn between what had happened and how it was going to be now that we found ourselves stuck in the same spill of treacle. He finally looked my way – what did he see? A girl left alone to keep house – his house – but he couldn’t stop himself for long from looking at the bump. The bump was always going to be hard to negotiate. He cleared his throat and asked if there was any butter. It was such a polite request, softly made. I’d forgotten it! If I’d committed such a crime at The Hill I’d likely have a clout round the ear by now. I should have tried harder on the first day of being someone’s wife.

The reality that he could ask me to fetch and carry for him just like I’d been made to fetch and carry for her all my life made me bold. I didn’t have much more to lose by letting him see he hadn’t got a bargain.

–  I’m not going to be your wife! I’m not, you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do, you can’t. If you come anywhere near me, I’ll tell Daddy … or … or … Eileen or the priest! I will!