Summer 1996

Back home, things seemed a lot happier, Abby was actually welcomed by her sister and father, her mum looked merely tired, not just the washed out, careworn person she remembered leaving. There was no longer the grey depression that surrounded the Smith family home.

They had parted at Birmingham, James travelling on to London, but with the promise that he would come up to visit.

"Not if I visit first," Abby told him, and they kissed on the station platform as Jane's train to Euston came in. Abby waved him off, then looked at the boards to find her train back to Edgeford.

And the first week wasn't as boring as she thought it was going to be - Abby met up with her friends, who were discussing which college to go to.

A miracle occurred at the start of the first week - Denise arrived, her ice-cold demeanour having not changed much in her manner since Dean's death.

But one thing has changed - shd actually spoke to Abby like a human being, for once, asking her opinion about which university, and although Abby didn't know about Bath or York, she was flattered to have been asked.

"Mother and father say you are welcome back with them," Denise told Abby for about the fiftieth time since she had got there. She had decided on Birmingham, and law, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith had agreed that Denise could stay with them.

So Derry didn't feel like too bad an option, all things considered. Especially knowing that James would be going back. Besides, she knew what A Levels she wanted to do, and they would be easier there. Her friends were going to colleges to do different things to Abby.

It didn't stop them from spending the summer with her, sitting and hanging, talking, going to get the GCSE results - Abby's were posted, and for sitting them early they were good - all As and Bs, with a disappointing C for history. But Abby would be the first to admit that she had struggled to remember all of the content. And it wasn't as if she wanted to do history A-level.

She had turned to face the retreating Northern Ireland as she and James had stood hand in hand, the Mourne mountains the backdrop to the city knowing exactly what she wanted to study.

And it had been James who had put it in her mind she could go to Our Lady Immaculate College.

"But I'm not a Catholic."

"So? I'm barely one. Go and see Sister Michael."

And, before they had left, Abby had, the intimidating nun listening to her, about courses and meaning.

"But, why here, Miss Smith, I'm curious. Because that group of individuals are not a good influence."

"They are the best friends I have," Abby had replied. "I would convert if it would make a difference."

"You're that serious?" Sister Michael asked, uncharacteristically misfooted for a moment.

"I would," Abby had told her. And in that moment, she would. Considering what she and James had done that summer - she did not ever want to be apart from him again.

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It had been after a night of hanging with her friends, and James has stayed at the Smith house, three weeks into the summer holidays, in the guest bedroom, Mr. and Mrs. Smith delighted she had made an "English friend" in Derry.

They hadn't slept, and in the morning they had caught the bus to Lichfield.

The registry office was near the park - it was James' idea, and Abby had asked him to wait for a moment - not because she wasn't sure but because she wanted her friends to be there. It was a hard hour of waiting until her friends arrived but, true to their friendship, Emma and Tammy witnessed it.

Then they had all gone off to a pizza restaurant in the city and stayed there until the last bus home, and James had taken his things, heading on to Liveroool and a ferry to Belfast, and to Derry, away before her.

But not without a kiss - several kisses - and a teary goodbye at the station.

"I can see why you did that," Emma told her, as they went back to Abby's house. The next day was results day and they were going to walk to Abby's old school together, to see what her friends had achieved. "I can see why you like him - like him enough to do what you did."

And it was true - it was all on paper, their love. And Emma promised to keep it for her and they celebrated their results together with a party at Tammy's house, and Abby found out her brother, who was in the Foresters regiment, was to be posted to Derry.

"That seals it, I'm definitely going back," she told them, as night became morning. "I'll look out for him."

It was a promise Abby would try to keep as best as she could. Later, she would know just how inadequate her words were; then, in the company of her friends, Abby truly meant them.

And she left, her home a happy one, her friends a happy group, to Derry and her friends there, to her first year of A-levels, to James and to a promisingly bright future.

Little did she know. And, had Abby known, would she have believed it? She still would probably make the same decisions.

Derry, to its green land and rocks and cliffs and caves. To its geography and human inhabitants over many thousands of years. They who lived there now were just the top strata of the anthropological geology of the place.

Abby Smith was going back to Derry.