‘You filthy hound?’

‘I know,’ John said. ‘It was the first thing that came into my head,’ he added, stuffing another one of Annie’s vol-au-vents into his mouth. ‘I just saw him coming towards you and I snapped.’

‘Well, I think you overreacted a bit.’

‘That’s what you say but what would have happened if you hadn’t left that service door open and I hadn’t arrived at that moment?’

John finished chewing and swiped a few crumbs off his bare chest before delicately wiping his mouth on the corner of the sheet. ‘No – don’t answer that question.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I won’t be leaving it open again. The place could have been robbed! Anyway – what the hell are you doing here?’

They had just made love. Twice. Once in the store room after Noreen calmed down a terrified Handsome and again, just now, in the flat, after she introduced him to Lara and Annie. Annie offered John and Noreen her bed after a short and rather embarrassing exchange in which Annie acknowledged that John might wish to sleep on the sofa for propriety’s sake and John looked in danger of conceding.

‘For goodness sake, Annie.’ Noreen had snapped. ‘We haven’t seen each other in nearly six weeks. We want to have SEX!’

Lara would normally have laughed delightedly at Noreen’s forwardness, but there was still a distance between them. She excused herself to go to her studio where she had been working through the night lately. Noreen tried to assume that it wasn’t her fault and had something to do with Matthew. She couldn’t do anything else as Lara had stopped confiding in her altogether. Noreen was feeling the strain between them terribly. She used work to distract herself and today she thought she might have found another distraction in her new barman. While John turning up to check on her, then muscling in on her new life was very annoying, Noreen had to admit it was a huge relief to see him.

So had the orgasm been. It felt like ages since she had enjoyed herself as much. Which was also annoying.

‘I’m on holiday,’ he said.

She looked at him sideways.

‘I came over for you. I missed you.’

‘I know what you missed,’ she said.

‘That too,’ he said, grinning.

Noreen felt a flood of love for him. But she couldn’t give into it. This was her great adventure and this Cork lutherum following her across was not part of the plan. Even though, in her heart, she knew she was glad to see him. Even though seeing him had chased away the loneliness and made her feel complete again.

Noreen rolled over in the bed and reached across John’s naked stomach for the last mushroom and cream cheese vol-au-vent. Annie had sent them into bed with a tray of them. It was an eccentric offering for a lovemaking couple although, Noreen had to admit, it had been equally eccentric of them to accept. Much as she mistrusted the source, Noreen could never refuse Annie’s offer of food.

‘She’s a great cook, your flatmate.’

‘Yeah. She works in the cafe across the road firing big breakfasts into big hairy lads, like you.’

‘I like her already.’

‘Yes, well I don’t. She’s weird.’

‘How so?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t trust her. She’s hiding something.’

‘What’s she hiding?’

‘I don’t know. Just something. Like her family. She’s cagey – you know? Doesn’t like talking about her past.’

‘Maybe she’s just a private person.’

Noreen waved that off as if the notion was ridiculous.

‘I’m pretty sure she’s lying about where she’s from.’

‘God, Noreen, can you not mind your own business… what are you doing?’

Noreen was down on her hands and knees rummaging under the bed.

‘She keeps a locked case down here. Who hides a locked case under their bed?’

‘Jesus, Noreen, get up out of there at once! You can’t go opening other people’s private—’

The brown leather case was already up on the bed and Noreen was securing the bedroom door with a chair under the handle.

‘You’re right. I can’t open it. I’ve tried. You do it.’

‘Jesus, Mary and Holy Saint Joseph. No, Noreen! Now, you’ve gone too far!’

Noreen was standing looking at him.

‘I know you can open it, John. You told me you can open any lock.’

The moral argument was already over. There was no sense in even trying once Noreen had made her mind up. But he had to try.

‘It’s a padlock. There’s no way.’

Noreen handed him a hair grip.

‘You told me Curly Boland taught you how to open any lock that time when you had him in custody.’

Then she pouted at him.

‘Please? Are you not just a tiny bit curious?’

He took the grip off her. ‘No, I’m not.’ He began to fiddle with the lock adding, ‘I can’t believe you’re making me do this.’ He easily removed the padlock and said, ‘This is illegal, Noreen. You know that?’ and clicked open the case.

Noreen threw open the lid and flung her hands in.

‘Oh. My. God. Look at this.’

Noreen was pulling out jewellery in clumps and sifting through them: pearls, gold bangles and a choker with tiny diamonds. As she put an emerald ring on her finger John reached over, snatched it off her and started returning the stuff as quickly as she was taking it out again.

‘Noreen, this is wrong.’

‘She’s a robber, John. A jewel thief!’

‘This is a suitcase in a person’s private room, Noreen. You have no evidence of that whatsoever. Lots of people keep their valuables locked up; if anyone’s committing a crime here it’s us.’

‘Nonsense. What woman keeps her jewellery locked up? Anyway, she’s not a jewellery person – so what is she doing with it? Aha,’ she said, taking out a diary and opening it.

‘Put that down, Noreen. Are you really considering reading another person’s private diary?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, flicking through it. John snatched it from her and put it back in the case, although not before Noreen had made a mental note of the name in the front, Hanna Black, Killa, County Sligo, Ireland. A different name. Her diary or somebody else’s. She recognised Annie’s writing.

‘She’s changed her name. Well if that’s not suspicious, I don’t know what is.’

‘Changing your name is not a crime,’ John answered as he frantically tried to arrange the jewellery and diary back in place.

‘What’s this?’ Noreen said, reaching across his work to grab a piece of old fabric. As she pulled it towards her it unfurled into a filthy apron. Dried flakes of large dark crumbs fell onto the bed.

‘Argh!’ she cried out. Then threw the apron down.

‘Shhhh,’ John said, his voice rising, ‘they’ll hear you!’

‘Oh my God, John,’ she said, looking at him, stricken, ‘it’s blood,’ she whispered. ‘We have to go to the police.’

John grabbed Noreen by the shoulder then looked her straight in the eye and said in a low, firm whisper, ‘Listen to me. I am not going to the police, Noreen.’ She opened her mouth. ‘And neither are you.’

‘But—’

‘No buts, Noreen. There’s probably some perfectly reasonable explanation for this.’

‘What is it then?’

‘She could have been butchering a pig or something.’

‘Usually you wash a bloodstained apron – not hide it.’

‘The point is we’re now breaking the law, right now this minute, in opening her private property. Whatever is in this suitcase cannot be used as evidence of crime. Even if there was a crime. Which there probably wasn’t.’

‘So I could be sharing a flat with a murderess and you don’t even care?’

If that slip of a girl Annie decided to come at his hefty Noreen with a knife, John thought, she would want to be very fast indeed, and even then, he didn’t fancy her chances.

‘I would worry a lot more about that cad you work with coming at you.’

‘I bet you would,’ Noreen said. ‘Jealous?’

‘Yes!’ John said. Then, more quietly, ‘Of course I am.’

Noreen felt a terrible pang of regret at having hurt him. Then remembered he wasn’t supposed to be here.

She let John lock up the case and put it back under the bed. She had what she needed anyway. A name. Hanna Black.

When he was done and the truce set, John propped himself up on the pillows and turned himself into a sofa for Noreen. She leaned back onto his chest, lit a cigarette and looked out of the long Georgian window at the Kings Road. It felt so good, to be just lying there with John, in London. But then, she remembered, she could be doing this at home. Lying there, on his chest, in between lovemaking bouts, eating sandwiches, smoking fags and talking aul’ rubbish. This intimacy and affection was so nice. It was what it would lead to she didn’t want. The whole ‘forever’ thing. John wasn’t here on holiday. He was here to try to drag her home to Carney. Shove her in a pinny, get her up the duff and trap her there for the rest of her life. Still, she would enjoy this while it lasted.

After a few moments John broke the silence.

‘Noreen, can I ask you a question?’

His voice was soft and Noreen felt a shiver of dread.

‘Are we still engaged?’

There were so many things that Noreen wanted to say in that moment. ‘Marriage is so bourgeois.’ ‘Why can’t people just live together?’ ‘This is the sixties. Chill out, man. Live a little.’ She wanted John to stay. She wanted to make love with him. She missed him. She knew, too, that even though she was playing the big strong girl in London, she needed him. More than all of that, she loved him. But did she want to marry him? Noreen had been hedging her bets, distracting her family, her fiancé, but also, herself to try to hold off the inevitable. In that moment, being asked directly, Noreen knew that she owed it to John to give him an honest answer.

‘No.’

Even though she said it in an apologetic whisper, the tiny word filled the room, as if she had shouted it out in a loud, angry stab.

John paused. She felt his hurt move across his chest in a sharp breath.

There were things she could have said to try to explain herself. Can’t we just go along as we are for a while? Just because I don’t want to marry you that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. But she knew they were pointless. John was a devout Catholic and a deeply conventional man. He needed to get married. He wanted to get on with his life and have a wife by his side, producing children for him. Noreen knew she had already forced him to break with his traditional values by being with a woman who worked, luring him into having sex before marriage and now, running off to London to spread her wings. There is only so much a man could be expected to tolerate. John was a good man who deserved to settle down with a nice girl. Noreen didn’t want to be nice any more. Or good. She wanted to be free. She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. But she knew what it didn’t mean. And that was getting married.

‘That’s it then,’ he eventually said. ‘It’s over?’

Noreen felt the awkwardness of their naked skin pressed together and wished she could take the words back. Or rather, make them not true. But she couldn’t.

It doesn’t have to be. I don’t want it to be.

But what was the point? She’d only be dragging things on longer. Leading him on. Ruining his chances of meeting somebody else. Living happily ever after with a sensible girl. God knows, they’d be lining up for him. The thought of that sent a little shard of rage through Noreen. Kitty Molloy would be first on his doorstep. With a stupid bow in her hair and a plate of scones. Maureen Munnelly? She’d be delighted to hear he was back on the market – so would her mother. Then, Oh God, there was Sheila Nolan. He’d taken Sheila to a dance in Fermoy the week before they got together. She was a proper dolly bird now, since she had the hair dyed. John would probably call on her straight from the boat.

Feck it – I’ll marry you!

Noreen could not bear the thought of him being with anyone else. But she couldn’t just marry him to keep him off the market. Could she? Maybe that was what everyone did. You had no choice but to marry the man you loved. If you didn’t get married you couldn’t be loved.

It was very confusing. Except for one thing. Noreen knew that she did not want to get married. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that she could not, would not, make the commitment to one person for the rest of her life. It just didn’t feel right.

As John hurriedly got dressed, Noreen stood watching him in agony, knowing there was nothing she could say to keep him with her. Nothing that wasn’t an outright lie or a shallow piece of plámás that would fall flat on its face later.

He looked at her as he left, his face pleading with her to say something.

’Please don’t go,’ she said. ‘Not like this.’

John looked at her and, while he loved her, he knew he couldn’t do this any more. Noreen had to belong to him. Only to him. Whether she had, or hadn’t slept with another man since she had been here, the mere threat of it was intolerable.

‘I can’t go on pretending all this is alright, Noreen, because it isn’t. I’m just an ordinary Irishman. All this – it’s just not for me.’ And he walked out the door.

Noreen cried for an hour.

Then she went and rummaged in the kitchen for some comfort food. She didn’t have to look far. Annie had left out a selection of cut cheeses and crackers in case they got hungry in the night. With a snap of irritation, Noreen noticed Annie’s new, French wooden-handled cheese cutter was hanging neatly on its hook by the bread bin, and wondered why any woman would want to spend their hard-earned money on such pointless cooking appliances.

After stuffing back a dozen cheese-loaded crackers, Noreen pulled herself together. She had work tomorrow, and an exciting life to lead. She had scarified the love of her life to be on this adventure and to hell with John, and her father, and the wretched Catholic Church and its institution of marriage; she was going to make this adventure happen by being utterly wicked and naughty.

But before she let go of her goody-goody self entirely, Noreen decided to do one last good deed.

She picked up her letter pad and started writing.

Dear Mr and Mrs Black,

My name is Noreen Lyons and I share a flat in London with your daughter, Hanna…

Irish slang for big, awkward man

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