The Girl from Ballymor. Kathleen McGurl

      It walked obediently beside her, down the lane back to her own cottage, as though it knew its master was dead. There would be goat’s milk to drink in the morning, Kitty thought, but immediately chastised herself for thinking of her own family’s fortune, when poor Martin lay dead not a hundred yards away.

CHAPTER 7

       Maria

      I stayed in the bar till closing time, sipping J2Os and mineral waters, enjoying the music and pondering Dan’s question. We’d been together so long – five years, and had lived together for three. Why upset the status quo? What was marriage anyway, other than a piece of paper that made it ‘official’? We loved each other, we were committed to each other – financially at least, since we had a joint mortgage on the house – what more would being married give us? I was scared of change, I knew that. Dan had spent ages talking me into buying a house with him. We’d originally rented a place together, and I’d liked the fact that if everything went wrong I could move out and give up the tenancy with only a month’s notice. Buying a house was a much bigger commitment. But it had made financial sense, and I had been certain Dan was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, even if I had never thought about marriage. I was still certain of that, although looking to the future was not something I was very good at. The future looked scary from here.

      I was better at thinking about the past. Dan and I had met in a pub, much like this one but in Camden Town. It had been packed to the rafters and there was a live band playing – some kind of alternative rock band, clothed all in black with spiky neon-coloured hair and dragons on their shirts. Aoife would have loved them. I’d been at the bar, trying to buy drinks for myself and two mates who loved this music and had dragged me along, and I was being totally ignored by the bar staff. Probably, I’d thought at the time, because my looks weren’t alternative enough. There was no gel in my hair, no rips in my jeans and no piercings in my nose. The bloke to my left at the bar – mouse-brown floppy hair, matching eyes, lovely smile – was also being ignored. He’d been waiting even longer than me. After a while the two of us began rolling our eyes, sighing with exasperation and then giggling.

      ‘I guess we’re not the kind of customers they want here,’ he’d said to me. ‘I’m Dan, by the way.’

      ‘Maria. Nice to meet you,’ I’d said, and instinctively put out my hand for him to shake. The formality of the gesture made us both giggle some more, and by the time we were both eventually served, we’d swapped phone numbers.

      He texted me on and off during the evening until, when I could take no more of the thrashing guitars and screaming lyrics, I’d told my mates I was going home with a headache, texted Dan, and we met up outside the pub. He’d walked me home the long way, via the canal towpaths, and we’d had our first kiss at the door of the flat I was renting at the time. I think I’d known even then that this was a relationship that would last. Why then was I unable to say a simple yes to his proposal? Or was it just the other thing, that I hadn’t told him, and that he should know before he had my answer? That he should have known before he asked the question?

      O’Sullivan’s band were now playing the Irish national anthem, and everyone in the pub stood up in respectful silence. Even Paulie shuffled off his bar stool and gazed into the middle distance, his eyes misty. I loved the patriotism of the Irish, but playing the national anthem signalled the end of the night, and indeed Aoife turned up the pub lights, the musicians packed up, and the pub slowly emptied of customers. Time for bed. No text from Dan about the bracelet yet.

      It was when I was half undressed, pottering around my room in my underwear, that he called me.

      ‘Hi, Maria. I found the bracelet.’ His voice sounded strangely taut, as though he was trying to control his emotions.

      ‘Great! Where was it?’ I felt a huge wave of relief. That bracelet was so important to me. So many memories were bound up in it, starting with Dad waltzing me around the sitting room to Marianne Faithfull’s ‘Dreaming My Dreams’ on the Christmas he’d given it to me, while Jackie watched, scowling, jealous of the attention I was getting from him.

      ‘It was where you said it might be. In the top drawer of your bedside cabinet.’ Dan took a deep breath. ‘Maria, is there something you need to tell me?’

      Oh God. I suddenly realised what else I had stuffed into that drawer, underneath shop receipts and packets of painkillers. I didn’t know what to say, how to start the conversation we were clearly just about to have, that we should have had weeks ago. My mind raced, hunting for the right words.

      ‘Maria, when did you take the test? Is it recent, or what? I mean, are you actually . . . right now . . . or . . .’

      I sat down heavily on the bed. This was it. No more denying it. I had to tell him, and it would change everything. ‘Two months ago.’