‘We were there for a short while, talking about this and that, making fun of some of the people in the village and … he kissed me. It wasn’t what I wanted, but … I don’t know … maybe I didn’t make that clear enough. I probably just laughed or something. I wasn’t interested, though. Really I wasn’t.’ Her mother stopped to drink some tea. Before resuming, she took a long breath. ‘Next thing I knew, he’d knocked me onto my back and he was on top of me. Even in those days, he was a big man. “Strong” was the word people liked to use. I was as thin then as you are now. And I was drunk. In no time, my trousers were open. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. Not that it would have made any difference. It was late at night and nobody would have heard me. And then …’ She hesitated. ‘And then, he forced himself on me. Even though it was dark, I can still see his bloodshot eyes. I imagine that I can smell him too. He smelt sort of vinegary.’ Another hesitation. ‘You don’t want me to go through everything, do you? You’ve got to understand … I’ve spent a long time trying not to remember. And I’ve come to believe that the mind does filter some things out. That otherwise we’d all go crazy.’

‘No,’ Tess heard herself say. Her reactions were delayed, as if her mother was at the end of a long-distance phone line rather than a few inches away. ‘No, of course, I don’t. But … this man … you haven’t … you haven’t mentioned his name.’

‘Lord, Tess, I’m sorry. It was Noel O’Grady. That’s who I’m talking about: Noel O’Grady. Afterwards, when he’d … when it was over … he told me he’d better be getting off home. He was a married man, after all, a respectable married man with a job and a car, Marty toddling around, Philly in the pram and another baby on the way. I remember lying there for an hour, maybe more, trying to make sense of what he’d done. But I couldn’t. Of course I couldn’t.’

So many thoughts were ripping through Tess’s head that she was finding it hard to focus. Was her mam saying that Noel O’Grady was her father? Obnoxious Noel with the silent wife and the sons who’d made it their business to taunt and tease her. Noel O’Grady who’d got drunk and driven his car into a ditch. One thought won out. When finally she was able to speak, she said, ‘That’s rape. What he did to you, it was rape.’

‘You can call it that, but it was what happened. There was nothing I could do to stop it or change it.’

‘But didn’t you tell anyone? Didn’t you—’