The Bright One by Elvi Rhodes

Lourdes. Would they help her? She rather thought not. More than likely they would send her back home on the next train. She became more and more afraid that one day soon she would find herself obliged to marry a Kilbally boy, and that was a future which filled her with despair.
    But with her mother’s words hope sprang afresh in her. Barry Devlin probably had a girl in Dublin – what could be more likely? – but he wasn’t in Dublin now, he was right here in Kilbally, and would be for two whole weeks!
    The first thing she did, next morning, was to tell Miss Glenda that she wanted to take the week’s holiday which was due to her. She wanted to take it at once; she hadn’t been feeling well for some time and she needed a change.
    â€˜But that’s highly inconvenient!’ Miss Glenda protested. ‘You have appointments, bookings. What am I to tell them?’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Moira said wanly. ‘I just don’t feel up to it.’
    â€˜I don’t know how you can afford to take a holiday,’ Miss Glenda said. ‘I know I never can.’
    Moira was aware that she wouldn’t get paid. She would just have to manage without it and so would her mother. And for a second week if necessary, for if things went well she had no intention of going back to work while Barry Devlin was in the neighbourhood.
    Everything did go well, from the moment she knocked on Grandma Devlin’s door, saying she was just out for a nice walk and hadn’t a nail sprung up suddenly in her shoe so that it was crippling her, and could she borrow a hammer and she’d knock it down, so? And – surprise, surprise – wasn’t Barry himself in the house and not knowing what to do with himself because everyone was at work, and Moira would be doing them all a favour, his grandmother said, if, when he had knocked the nail down, Moira would take him with her on her long walk.
    He found it difficult to locate the nail, but whatever he had done with the hammer, Moira said, he had worked the magic. Her shoe had never felt so comfortable.
    Have I done the right thing, Nora Devlin wondered, watching them set off. Didn’t everyone know that Moira O’Connor was a fast piece, in spite of the fact that her mother was the nicest woman you could meet in a day’s march? But there were no flies on Barry, she comforted herself. He was a city man, wasn’t he, a match for any country girl, even Moira O’Connor.
    Moira had never walked so much as in that first week, which then, as she had expected, extended to a fortnight.
    â€˜You could lose your job!’ her mother protested.
    I shan’t need it, Moira thought.
    They went to the beaches, to the nearby villages where, greatly daring, she went into bars with him, drinking lemonade and sipping his Guinness. They pottered around the harbours, they walked along the cliffs and looked out over the Atlantic Ocean.
    But it was not all walking. There was always somewhere to sit; on the short grass along the cliff tops, in a field or, when the rain came, in a handy barn. Anywhere.
    They sat or lay close, their bodies touching. It was never long before their lips met in kisses the like of which even Moira had not known before. Barry was clearly experienced. He did things to her which set her body on fire, which made her long to give in to the demands he more and more made on her. If only she could be quite, quite sure of him! But until she was, she would never let him go the whole way.
    â€˜â€™Tis not that I don’t want to,’ she told him.
    â€˜Well then . . . ?’
    â€˜There are some things I would only give to the man I marry,’ she said softly.
    It was not easy for her. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Also she wondered if her refusal might put him off altogether, but that was a gamble she had to take. There were only two days left.
    In fact, it seemed that her virtue had made her even more