Rosie exploded. “The bastard, the bloody bastard, next time I see Shirley I’m going to splatter her—he didn’t listen to a word I said, might as well have been talking to the wall—”

“Rosie, slow down—”

“He said not to come crying to him when I wound up pregnant and dumped and covered in bruises, Jesus, Frank, I could’ve killed him, I swear to God—”

“Then what are you doing here? Does he know—?”

Rosie said, “Yeah, he does. He sent me round to break it off with you.”

I didn’t even realize I had stopped in the middle of the pavement till she turned back to see where I’d gone. “I’m not doing it, you big eejit! You seriously think I’d leave you ’cause my da told me to? Are you mental?”

“Christ,” I said. My heart slowly slid back down to where it belonged. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I thought . . . Christ.”

“Francis.” She came back to me and laced her fingers through mine, hard enough to hurt. “I’m not. OK? I just don’t know what to do.”

I would have sold a kidney to be able to come out with the magic answer. I went for the most impressive dragon-slaying offer I could think of. “I’ll call in and talk to your da. Man to man. I’ll tell him there’s no way I’d mess you around.”

“I already told him that. A hundred times. He thinks you’re after selling me a load of bollix so you can get into my knickers, and I’m after buying every word. You think he’ll listen to you, when he won’t to me?”

“So I’ll show him. Once he sees I’m treating you right—”

“We don’t have time! He says I’m to break it off with you tonight or he’ll throw me out of the house, and he will, he’ll do it. It’d break my mammy’s heart, but he wouldn’t care. He’ll tell her she can’t even see me again and, God help her, she’ll do what she’s told.”

After seventeen years of my family, my default solution to everything was a tightly zipped lip. I said, “So tell him you did it. Dumped me. Nobody has to know we’re still together.”

Rosie went motionless, and I saw her mind start to move fast. After a moment she said, “For how long?”

“Till we come up with a better plan, till your da chills out, I don’t know. If we just hang in there long enough, something’s bound to change.”

“Maybe.” She was still thinking hard, head bent over our joined hands. “D’you think we could pull it off ? The way people talk around here . . .”