As I sit on the toilet watching the water flow into the bath, I think that Jenny will have made it to the Grange by now. I wonder if she will head straight to the Ladies to check her appearance before she looks out for Jerome. I imagine that he will be waiting at the bar with a pint of Guinness for himself and a red wine for Jenny in situ in anticipation. It irks me that I remember that Guinness is the drink he ordered from me all those years ago in the Crown. I can hear the kids downstairs fighting amongst themselves about whose fault it was that the game had to come to such an abrupt end. They are all blaming each other. I stick my head out of the bathroom door and I shout down to them that they are all equally to blame and that one of them better come up here and get into the bath first before I lose it. I turn around and I choose not to look in the mirror above the hand basin because I know that I’m likely to see anger and contortion. I push the lid up on the toilet seat and I take a piss. It feels right to dispel whatever fluid is left in my body after getting sick.

Bathtime is the greatest test of one’s sanity as a parent. Everyone is always tired and tempers are frayed at the edges like old cloth. Each kid has many needs. Maeve is adamant that she will not use the same towel as Joey because he seems to permanently have worms. I tell Maeve to get into the bath first as she is a girl and is less likely to be as grievously dirty as the other pair. This will serve two purposes, she will get clean water and she can have first dibs for the towel. We joke around about boys being disgusting in general but the humour doesn’t last on my part. The problem is that Maeve is taking far too long for my liking, five minutes at my last count and the whole ritual seems interminably long if things are going to continue to move along at this wretched pace. And I need a drink.