‘No, thanks,’ Katie said, watching him light up. With a deep pang she found that she knew his hands intimately, the shape of them, the shading of dark hairs on the backs of his fingers, hands that she had once, many years ago, seen close up and been held by. The feeling of longing they gave her was so acute that her chest ached. She distracted herself, watching the way his lips moved round the tip of the cigarette. He blew out a mouthful of smoke and went on.

‘The thing was, then, when I was sick, she had me just where she wanted me: in her power. She was truly happy. I heard her singing round the house. I think it would have suited her if I’d been an invalid and she could have had full control over everything.’ He gave a visible shudder. ‘I don’t know – I’m not sure how I can explain it all. How it all added up, so that I couldn’t stand being anywhere near her. It was as if she had her hands round my throat, day and night. I thought when she’d had you she might be better, have someone else to take her mind off it. And she was obsessed with you. Any mother would be, you were beautiful.’

Katie flushed with pleasure, hearing the genuine affection in his voice.

‘I could go on trying to explain. There was something crazed about her. It wasn’t that she flew into rages or tantrums all that often – it was that quiet, terrible, stifling atmosphere she created.’ Katie was forced to nod in admission. Oh, she knew that all right. ‘I couldn’t stand it, the look she had in her eyes sometimes.’ He drew on the cigarette. ‘Makes me go cold thinking of it, even now. It wasn’t that I was afraid of her harming me – or you. It was something more . . . More about just being with her.’

He shifted in his seat to cross one leg over the other and gave a tut of frustration as he looked across at Katie.

‘How d’you talk about the force of another person, the way they can press on you? Do you know, in any way, what I’m talking about?’

‘I lived with her for twenty-one years,’ Katie said, meeting his gaze.

‘And you left to marry?’

Time for truth, no pretence. ‘No. I left because I was having Michael. She refused to have anything further to do with me – or him, it seems.’

Michael O’Neill’s eyebrows lifted. ‘No? Dear God – just like her own mother. Heaven knows what a nest of miserable puritans they were. And the father?’

‘He never married me. He deserted me – just like you.’

She saw him flinch, but the truth could not be denied.

‘Then why . . .’ he asked hesitantly. ‘Why did you call him Michael: my name?’

That was when she lost control. ‘Because . . .’ Because I remembered you, because I wanted you, wanted you to be a good thing in my life . . .