When Juliet and Joya followed me into the Abbot’s Quarter, everyone looked startled at the onslaught of glamour. The high heels, the lipstick and the hair—these weren’t things they saw much of these days.

Dennis stumbled to his feet. ‘Joya—’ he stuttered, moving towards her.

‘Dad, no.’ She gave him the hand. ‘Don’t touch me.’

You could almost taste the shock in the room—this fabulous creature was Dennis’s daughter? This stylish, yoga-toned woman was his wife?

Juliet and Joya weren’t even settled in their chairs when Dennis started, ‘Before anyone says anything, can I—’

‘No, Dennis, you can’t.’

‘What about my side of the story?’

‘You’ve been here two weeks. We already know your side.’

‘But how will—’

‘Please stop talking. Start listening.’

I began with Joya, who was twisting her body into a pretzel of reluctance. ‘I don’t want to be here,’ she murmured.

‘Shur, g’wan away home!’ Dennis exclaimed. ‘No harm, no foul. Good girl, off you go.’ He half stood, wrenching a fat roll of soiled-looking fifties from his hip pocket. ‘Let me just give you some—’

‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Joya is staying. Sit back down and put that money away.’

When everyone had settled, I asked, ‘Joya, what kind of father is Dennis?’

‘It depends.’ Her voice was hesitant. ‘On which version of him you get.’

‘What does that mean?’ Dennis sounded wounded.

‘Like, he can be in great form. On those days you can ask him for anything and he’ll say yes. On the bad days he yells a lot. Yells at Mum.’

‘About what?’

‘Stuff like, one of his constituents, her washing machine broke, so he said Mum would do it. But he didn’t ask Mum, just came home with two bags of other people’s laundry. Mum told him to do it himself but he said that it wasn’t his job.’

‘So who did it?’

She shrugged. ‘Dunno. But not him, I bet. But that wasn’t out of the ordinary, he’s always making promises. Then breaking them. Like, a while ago, he gave Abigail and me each a credit card, with a limit of four hundred euro. He said we could buy whatever we wanted and he’d pay it off every month. But that never happened, not even once.’

‘Money, money, money, that’s all ye ever want!’ Dennis exploded.

‘We never asked for those cards,’ Joya exclaimed. ‘You gave them to us and of course we were psyched, don’t be cross with us for that. Then we found out it was bullshit. More bullshit.’

‘Can you tell Dennis what you’ve noticed about his drinking.’

Nervously, she said, ‘Sometimes we don’t see you for days, Dad. Then I get up to go to school and you’re lying on your face outside the house, passed out drunk. Always, the first thing I think is that he’s dead. It really scares me.’