‘Well, we managed ta bring them back, but he’s, they’ve … well, they’ve followed me …’ he said, breathless, playing with the collar, ‘here … I asked them not ta, but he won’na listen. Now … are ya up ta it?’

It was a warning more than a question.

Paddy Sherlock was returned.

‘Have I a chaice?’ Margaret Rose said.

‘Well. No, not really,’ he said, shooting his eyes downwards towards the bed, ‘but be … warned. He’s like a fucking lunatic.’

Michaela Sherlock grabbed her mother’s black rosary beads.

‘Well … well … well, now, would ya look here? Rosary beads. Rosary-fucking-beads. Well, I’ve seen it all now.’ The shout was rather ineffective, something uncertain about the way the man landed himself into our space, but land Paddy Sherlock did, banging his hip off the bin. Then he focused without blinking on his wife. ‘I canny fucking believe ya, Margaret Rose Sherlock.’ Michaela sat up straight on the bed, and played with the caviar balls of the rosary beads, clacking them inside and outside of her fingers, quickly.

‘Look at ye all praying with the saints?’ he said, eyeing up the Ward’s elaborate grotto of religious knick-knacks. He glanced at Alex and then me and looked somewhat disappointed. Taking a long in-breath, Paddy Sherlock then turned his attention back to his wife. ‘I canny believe what yar after doing to our Niquita … ya know something? Yar nothing but a bitch. How ja think ya could keep me away from helping her just like that? I have rights, ya know?’

‘I rang ya …’ Margaret Rose offered, quietly. ‘Many times.’

His large belly was housed in a blue Adidas zip top. He bent over and rubbed down the front of his shiny black slacks, a strange time for vanity. Niquita appeared behind him, banging into the bin also, and then helping Paddy upright as he groaned and rubbed his lower back. Jim put his head in his hands. The defeated. ‘Well, Mammy,’ Niquita said, cheekily, as she fawned over her father, rubbing down his arm, and thrusting herself about this way and that, giddily.

‘Nick, ah, love, it’s good ta see ya, don’na be like this,’ Margaret Rose pleaded; she remained motionless all the while, like a queen on a chessboard, taking her time, considerate or considering.

‘I tells ya what … yar an absolute thundering bitch, Margaret Rose, an absolute wan,’ Paddy said, ‘… and I’m, I’m disgraced to death with … ye all. All da cousins in Glan knows what she did too.’ He put his large head into his hands and ran them back along his hair.

Margaret Rose shot Niquita a wounded look.

‘What ya looking at her far? Bit late like … shir, she’s only gone and blabbed it to everywan she saw yesterday, and she came ta me and tells me all about it and how sorry she was,’ Paddy said.

‘How ja get to Birmingham from Manchester, Nick?’ Margaret asked her daughter calmly, her voice deadly serious.