‘You banged me head against the wall,’ she’d said, in shock. Tears stung her eyes and her chest felt like it was about to burst. What happened? We were just kissing and then … and then … Maisie was confused and angry. She wanted to throw her chips in his face, kick him in the shin and run but he was smiling at her and holding her hand.

‘Ah, Jesus,’ he said, examining her head, and he seemed genuinely sorry. ‘I must have lost the run of meself.’ He held her hand all the way home and told her how beautiful she was. Maisie felt sick and uneasy. She kept wondering what she’d done wrong. She worried that her dress was too short but she knew it wasn’t. She thought about where she’d rested her hands on him when he kissed her. Had she kissed him too deep or given him any kind of signal? She just didn’t understand, and decided to put the whole thing to the back of her mind. There was no point in crying over spilled milk. She’d just be more careful. She’d learn from her mistakes.

It wasn’t until ten years later, when she read an article in a magazine, that she realized she had been date-raped, so when Danny arrived the next day with a box of chocolates and introduced himself to Bridie as Maisie’s boyfriend she didn’t scream or call the guards. Instead she worried that if she told him to leave he’d spread rumours about her. I’ll give him a month and then I’ll break it off, no harm done. There’d be nothing worse than being branded some kind of whore. A month passed and she spent much of the time avoiding being alone with him, using her friends or her mother as excuses not to see him. If he suspected she was avoiding intimacy with him he didn’t say. He behaved like a gentleman, relatively speaking. He didn’t open doors or pull out her chair for her but he didn’t slip his mickey into her while she wasn’t looking either.

She wanted to break it off on the fourth Sunday: it seemed an appropriate day to end things. She had it all worked out but then he’d phoned her on the Friday, all excited because he was going away for a week.

‘Great news,’ he’d said. ‘My da’s brother’s had a stroke so there’s a free space on their golfing trip.’

‘Oh! When are ya off?’ Her heart had dropped to her stomach.

‘Sunday morning.’

Ah shite.

She had no option but to wait and by then they would be going out for six weeks, which was a totally respectable amount of time to end things. But by the time he’d returned home, everything had changed. There was no escape.