There was one Word document on the home screen, one media clip and in the top right-hand corner, a Netflix icon and Spotify link. Cool Runnings was recommended, and he had some half-finished films. American Psycho, Kill Bill, Blue Velvet.

Things linger after you die.

FaceBook birthday wishes come in. Shopping vouchers arrive. Hospital appointments. Phone calls from old uni friends. Who don’t know. TV licence people call. Text messages from your mother who often forgets you’re dead. Cold callers from TV and Internet companies.

A text from Alex checking in to see if I need him to stop at the shop.

You are fair and born on a Tuesday.

Things that don’t matter. Things that matter.

Father cried into his hands night after night, big fucken wailful cries, after my mother eventually left him, the night he sprinted up the stairs and kicked down the bathroom door. She’d escaped out into the night as he shouted after her, about her having put a spell on him, telling her everything she touched was fucked, that she brought badness, and that he’d burn the house to the ground and this time he (fucking) meant it. And no cross of reeds would save us. She kept running.

After. After. Always tears after.

Nothing matters after. It’s too late. G’Luck.

Margaret Rose’s phone rang. Dadadadadadadoom. Dadadadadadadoom. ‘Hello, yeah, this is she. No, I’m Margaret Rose, no, hold on, I cannot speak up … I’m not alone. No, no nono … Ah, is that you, Jim? Yar in fair traffic … Yar number is withheld … What? When? Shit. Shitshit. Well, shit anyway.’

Silence. Pause. Quiet. Oh so Quiet.

‘Fuck, where’d she go? Ah, Jim … Christ above … Ya had wan job. Wan … OK, that’s fair, ya had two. Oh, Christ, and no, she hasn’t rang me since … the clinic … I only heard from her wan time and I didn’a think she was in the best of form, but I thought ’twas natural … I’ll try her in a minute … Are you in Birmingham? OK, shir of course ya can come back, come back, it’s fine. She’s grown up now … ’Tisn’t yar fault … ah, sometimes she won’na listen ta any of us. Let’s not worry … yet.’

Grand we would all be with air, I thought, not the city air outside the ugly windows, not the diseased Hospital air, that germ-infested warm air that clings to the walls. Real air, the air that would blow the cobwebs out of you, could burst open some of our diseased pods and empty them out to the Atlantic.

‘Good, well, tell the boys ta hold off, that’s OK, he’s her father … no way … he’ll look after her. Watch.’

We could all go off in our knickers and jocks, Hegs, Margaret Rose, Jane and me, and bomb-dive off Blackrock Pier.

‘Ah, she didn’a tell them … silly girl. I’ll get Mic to ring her.’ Pause. ‘Yeah, I’d say so. Look, Jim, thanks … and love, just do yar best. But don’t send in the boys if Nick is in the house with Paddy and Bernie … ’K? And my guess is, that’s where she is.’