*

The ward was eerie as the late afternoon wind rattled the windows.

‘You never told me,’ he said as he was settling me back in to bed.

‘What?’ I said.

‘What was on the laptop?’ he said, eyes firm on the silver casing.

‘Just games, you know.’

‘Games?’

‘Yeah, just things like, you know, the way kids stick gummy teeth in their mouths.’

It was all that would come to me.

‘What … the … fuck?’

‘Oh, nothing, just rubbish. Fail Army Stuff. I think they were all mixed up.’

His face froze.

‘Kinky shit, like?’

I laughed.

‘No. Not kinky.’

I laughed again.

‘Kids love that game where you eat the doughnut but you can’t lick your lips,’ he said, forgetting.

‘I don’t know it.’

‘You do, I play it all the time at the kids’ birthday parties, you do, it’s bloody impossible, and if you hit the jam squidgy centre, you’re fucked entirely then.’ He grabbed the machine. ‘Gimme a look,’ he said, teasing me.

‘No, please, leave it, will you?’

I shut down the lid hard and he kissed the top of my head.

‘You’d better wash my hair soon,’ I groaned.

The window was rattling harder now, and started to bang.

‘I need to leave. I wish you’d just …’ I couldn’t bring myself to push the word respect into my sentence.

‘I need to get things for the house, to make everything comfortable, sorted.’ He was awkward now.

‘What do you mean sorted? We don’t live in a cave, we have everything.’

‘There’s a few things we need. That’s what they think …’ He trailed off.

‘Who the fuck are they, Alex?’ I took a breath. ‘I need to see the boys. But not here. Not like this. They are not to know, please, I really can’t. I’ll tell them … in my own way.’

‘But you won’t, Sinéad, you’ll hint and shuffle and no one will know what you’re on about.’ He softened. I had to stop pushing him. ‘Can we talk later? I’m exhausted?’

‘Fuck, fuck, shit, ouch, OUCH.’ The curtains rustled around Hegs and brown liquid poured out on the ground and across the middle of the Ward. Claire jerked the curtain back; hot chocolate had gone belly up on the floor beside her slipper socks. Alex sprang forward to help.

‘No no, no no nono NO NO NO …’ Claire insisted. ‘Just leave it.’

He came back and rolled his eyes, his patience waning.

‘Look, it’s Saturday, what would you think of getting a proper tea?’ Alex said to me.

‘Oh, Alex, I just … I haven’t the energy, or the clothes.’

‘I’ll run out for it, we can have it here.’

‘Here?’

Claire mopped the chocolate liquid off the floor.

‘Sure, sure,’ I said, distracted. ‘What you thinking of getting?’

‘Takeout? Wine?’

It was adventurous for him. ‘Or. Falafel maybe? Pizza? Indian?’

‘Indian, yes, great! Not too hot.’

My stomach heaved, but it was progress. If he could get takeout, he could drive me home.