Although she dutifully ordered from the take-away menu Mark had found pinned to the kitchen notice board, and although she laid the table while the men went off to collect the food, and although she sat and chatted until it was time for Ruairi to go and fetch his mother from yet another set of friends, she had no recollection of anything that had been said. As she cleared away the various foil dishes and plastic boxes, and washed up the plates, all she could think about were Ruairi’s words. They went round and round in her head until she thought she might scream, not because she was angry with him, but because she knew he was right. Although she had talked a lot about how she was going to change her job and travel the world, it had remained just that. Talk! She hadn’t done a single thing about it during the long summer vacation, and she could no longer convince herself that it was because Ruairi had come back into her life because, deep down, she knew it wasn’t true.
