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shows of glamour. She never spoke to us at the Irish classes, and I knew she thought us stupid. I didn’t mind, as I thought it better, at that time, to be stupid and pretty than clever but plain. We were there for the dancing afterwards and spent most of the class scanning the packed room to assess who was going to give us the greatest craic for the night ahead. Mae was on the lookout for romance, but I wasn’t.
    I only went after James Nolan to upset Aine Grealy.
    It was childish and nasty looking back on it now, but she had riled me terribly. Aine had been talking away to James after Mass this Sunday, and I had greeted them both in Irish as I passed by. Aine had corrected my pronunciation in reply. I thought it was a vile thing to do—and still do to this day—so I decided to put a halt to her gallop. Even if I broke his heart, I told myself, I was doing James a good turn. There was clearly an understanding developing between the two of them and I believed Aine to be ugly through from the inside out. He seemed an easygoing type who would be happy for anyone who’d have him. James Nolan might have been a scholar, but I had him down as a ludarman in matters of love.
    I was wrong about that. It was the first and last time I was ever made to feel a fool in front of James, but it was the first time of many where I had read his character wrong.
    The next Friday, I was wearing a lavender cardigan, which I fully knew set off my long black curls to beautiful effect. The class was over and everyone made busy pushing the chairs around to the edges of the room. Mae was talking to Paud Kelly as he was unpacking his accordion. Aine had made a beeline for James and was stuck to his side before the last of his pupils had stood. She was determined all right.
    But now she was up against Bernadine Moran. I might not have been good at Irish, but I knew something about love. At least I thought I did. I could look at any man and make his heart melt. It was cruel entertainment perhaps, but as far as I could see the men around me had it all their way. You had a few short years to tease them before you’d be darning their socks and tolerating their drunken abuses. That’s how it was for my mother in any case. Except that I could see James was a harmless type, I might have been more careful at setting myself on him like I did.
    All I did was look. I looked across the room at James in the way I had looked at Michael Tuffy some five years before when I had fallen in love. Except this was an imitation. When I had looked at Michael, I’d felt my knees buckle and the color rise in my cheeks in a fountain of pain and joy; this night I looked at our ordinary teacher and pretended. I cannot say how I did it, except that I stared hard at him until I knew he had noticed me. I knew, or believed back then, that I had something worth noticing.
    He stayed by Aine’s side that evening and walked her home as usual. I was irritated to have failed, but my resolve in the matter did not stretch to further action.
    The following week Aine was not there, and James asked me up for a dance. He was a tall man and made an awkward, gangly dancer. I was mortified as the other girls, including Mae, clapped us on as if there was something in it. As we were leaving, Mae nodded over to him, pointing out that he was loitering after us as if he had the intention of accompanying us. I scurried out quickly and she behind.
    I thought that was that, but before the week was up, I would get the greatest shock of my life.

6
    I came in from late Mass that Sunday and found James Nolan sitting in our kitchen. He was at the table with my father and there were papers in front of them. I was immediately confused; although my father was a brutish enough character, he could read and write sure enough. He wasn’t like some of the poor unschooled who needed to get the local teacher in to help them draft a letter.
    Father nodded at the kettle for me to make them tea, then at a rhubarb tart