With a smile on her face and her eyes lit with excitement, Mary had left Cindy, full of anticipation for all that could lie before her. And then she’d passed Jimmy outside the betting shop. Seeing him kiss the girl full on the lips, in the same way he’d kissed her, had pierced her feelings like a pin in a bubble and she’d gasped; she had just told Cindy she loved him with all her heart, said she knew he was just scared of her mam and da, that was why he hadn’t come to see her. But that was no longer true. She’d turned and watched the group as they walked away, Jimmy with his arm around the girl, and at that moment it dawned on her that she’d been set free. She’d lived a year in madness, waiting and hoping and dreaming of Jimmy and yet, here he was, and she couldn’t believe that she had been so stupid, so willing to hitch herself to a cartload of strife. To think of walking in her mother’s footsteps and hope and pray that her firstborn would be a girl in order to lighten the load as the years progressed. Why would she wish her misery on another?

As she made her way back to Nelson Street, Mary had felt the thrill of a different life opening before her. Cindy’s salon. Cindy’s salon. She would be exchanging one bleach for another, boredom for company, and soapsuds for sophistication – but, most of all, chores for creativity. She saw Eric the milkman running across the road towards the Anchor and he did a double take and then raised his hand towards her in greeting.

‘Lovely hair, Mary! Did Cindy do that?’

‘She did, Eric,’ she shouted back and then she amazed even herself as she called out to him, ‘Do you like it?’

‘I do indeed. You look thoroughly modern, Mary, absolutely gorgeous,’ he called as he passed her.

‘Thank you, Eric,’ she responded as her heart swelled. Never in her entire life had anyone before called her gorgeous. ‘You have a good evening, Eric,’ she called and almost laughed out loud as she thought: who has Cindy turned you into? She almost floated home, until she reached the back gate of the Nolans’ and thought she heard someone call out. She stood and listened, called, ‘Peggy? It’s Mary, are you all right?’ but there was no reply and, deciding it must have been a cat, she walked on.