In his slow moods, he would never ever have addressed Vera as a ‘girl’.

Katie came to know and love the words and rhythms of the psalms through these strange conversations, while Patrick’s dry fingers flicked the pages restlessly back and forth. And for his kindness and attention to her, she came to love him too.

Sometimes Patrick disappeared for several days and came back even more whippet-thin. He told them he spent the days walking, out to the Lickeys, the Clent Hills, or wandering the roads, as far as he and his shoe leather could last, while the burning desperation had taken hold of him. Katie remembered him coming back looking completely spent, having inexplicably lost all the buttons from his coat, the flaps held round him with a piece of farmer’s twine, his socks gone and the shoe leather splitting away from the soles.

‘Dear God, look at you!’ Vera breathed when she saw him come in the door. Her voice held anger and pity, and a desperation of her own. ‘What will people think? And look at your shoes!’ She seized the coat and sewed on more buttons.

Katie was used to the fact that while this was normal for her, the reality of their home life was to be a secret from everyone else. People were not invited in, and none of her friends from school ever came to the house. Vera held herself apart from her neighbours: no one was to see Patrick any more than was necessary. No one was to know – not even Enid, Vera’s one friend in the district. She kept up the pretence that no one noticed.

‘One of the boys at school said Uncle Patrick is a loony,’ Katie told Vera once, while she was still at St Joseph’s. ‘He said that’s why the Fathers sent him home.’

Vera’s face tightened. Again there was one of those inner storms that didn’t break out, but you could feel its vibrations.

‘Now look . . .’ She gripped Katie’s hand so tight that she squealed. ‘If anyone says anything to you about your uncle, you say to them, “I don’t know what you mean. My uncle has been in Africa. He’s suffering from a tropical complaint.” Don’t get angry – just pass it off casually. Say you don’t know any more.’ Once more she gripped hard. ‘Look at me . . .’

Katie raised her eyes to her mother’s intense gaze. Mother was far more frightening that Uncle Patrick. She didn’t understand what was the matter with him, only that he struggled heroically day after day.

‘There is no one in this house who is fit to be called a “loony”. It’s a spiteful lie and we’re not having it – d’you understand?’

‘Yes.’ She was trembling. ‘Mother.’

One of the best things about Uncle Patrick was that he lived a very austere life. He was not a drinker or smoker, so had a few pennies to spare. Above anything else, he loved being in water.