The lads almost drowned out her words, whistling and shouting indecencies at Peggy. ‘Is your bed cold, Peggy? Will you be wanting me to slip down this evening when I’m done at Paddy’s bar? Don’t be telling the missus on me now, I’ll be over later.’

‘You’ll have Michael’s gun at your back and Rosie will be straight down to see your missus, TJ, if you even try it,’ shouted Keeva in response, to guffaws of fading laughter.

‘See – the very state of them! Why would I be wanting to buy a ticket to be in the same room as that lot. Did you see the cut of that one? I feel sorry for his wife, she must have been drunk or desperate on the day she took her vows.’ Peggy nodded towards the back of the man who’d shouted.

‘She was definitely both, if I remember right,’ said Keeva thoughtfully, rubbing her hands together for warmth.

‘And has been ever since, so she has,’ said Peggy. ‘The last time I went to the dance, when his wife couldn’t go because she’d just had the last of the babbies and hadn’t yet been churched, he only jumped out at me when I tried to ride my bicycle back home. Put his hands on the handlebars, he did, and one leg either side of the front wheel, and tried to shove his filthy tongue down my throat.’

Keeva placed her hand over her mouth in disgust. ‘And him a married man. What did you do to get away, Peggy?’

Peggy grinned. ‘I bit it,’ she said proudly, crossing her arms. ‘And then I pushed one of my feet on the pedal so hard, I rammed the front wheel right where it hurt him the most. He screamed so loud, half of the people still dancing in the long hall came running out. He would have had a job explaining that to his missus when he got home too, and he hasn’t had another babby since, so he hasn’t. He’ll not be coming over here tonight – he wouldn’t dare.’

Keeva began to laugh. ‘Peggy, I wouldn’t dare to cross you, you scare the life out of me.’

Peggy looked pleased with herself. It was not often that someone paid her a compliment and Keeva’s words counted as just that.

‘Well, Tig is going and I am too, and Michael and Rosie have bought tickets.’

‘Have they?’ They hadn’t told her or even mentioned it to her.

Keeva noticed the brief look of hurt that swept across her face.

Peggy, the single one who no one ever thought to include in anything. It had been easy enough when she was in her teens and early twenties and had hung about with the crowd of other single village girls, picking off their husbands from the village boys one by one. But after a while, dreamer Peggy, head-in-the-clouds, film-mad Peggy, was the only one left. Now, past her thirtieth year, she was an old maid and largely forgotten. It wouldn’t be long before they added a new insult and started calling her ‘old Peggy from the shop’, and no one was more aware of that than Peggy herself.