But there were days, just a few, back then, when he couldn’t get up at all. Katie didn’t notice very often, especially once she was old enough to go to school. She hardly realized that jobs came and went. He worked in factories, on building sites, at the wharf, came home black for a time when he was a stoker in the retort house at the gas works. He would lose one job, find another.

But there were other days when he bounced about, as if he had more energy than anyone else. He would get very excited, talk loudly and endlessly, and there was always a plan for something big.

‘I’m going to start my own little firm very soon,’ he’d say. At first Vera had seemed to believe him, not knowing the pattern. In spite of everything, she looked up to him. He’d had an education. Patrick’s schemes – for making umbrellas, then a new kind of wheelbarrow, a car even, then sweets another day – all sounded marvellous and almost plausible. He knew exactly how to do it: whatever it was, no one had ever done it this way before. He knew where to get money, he had his eye on some premises somewhere and he knew just the fella to help him and get the business up and running. They’d soon be out of here, living in a grand house in the suburbs with a vegetable garden and roses.

Patrick had a particular love of the psalms, and amid the stories from Irish folklore and the songs he sang to Katie in his tuneful voice as she stood at his knee, he often read her psalms. In what Vera came to call his ‘quick moods’, he saw very particular significance in them – some lines shining out, intended specially for him.

‘Come here now, Katie,’ he’d say, his ocean eyes aflame with excitement. Scooping her onto his knee, he’d hold the scripture in front of her – his worn old Douay Bible, one of the few possessions that he’d carried back with him from Uganda. She could feel his scrawny legs under her and see how shiny thin his trousers were, so old that the black had faded to grey and smelled unwashed. His shirtsleeves were frayed at the ends and his jacket patched repeatedly by Vera. Around her, Katie would feel his body thrumming and twitching, never still. His breath smelt of tea, or sometimes of camomile or rosemary. He had a great belief in herbs as being good for him in some way

‘See here now – this is it: “For thou shalt eat the labours of thy hands: blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee.” D’you see now? That shows for certain we’re going to prosper – it’s all going to happen, see? See? And look here . . .’ Flick, flick. ‘“Thou hast understood my thoughts afar off: my path and my line thou hast searched out.” It’s all God speaking, loud and clear: “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me.”’ Phrases were flung out, using the Bible like a fairground lady with a crystal ball. ‘“Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature.” Oh yes – the tide’s turning, girls, you can be sure of that.’