‘Manchester has her booked in at midday. I’ll drop a pin in the place and link ya on this.’ She nodded at the machine to locate the city that was to take on the weight of Niquita Sherlock.

‘Sound.’

‘Couldn’t sort it in Birmingham. So sorry, they’re fully booked.’

‘Short notice.’

‘Yar right, ’tis woeful short notice, sorry that you’ll have to travel onwards …’ Margaret Rose said, carefully, to avoid taking a chunk out of the inflated cheek.

‘Ya sure this is right, Mags?’

‘What? Which part?’ She raised one eyebrow.

‘All of it.’

‘Ah … now … don’na start again, Jim. Of course it’s right, we canny end up embroiled for ever with the O’Keefes. And as for Paddy …’ she said, stopping, and rubbed the cheek. The wounded. ‘Just, no words.’

‘’K,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

A lispy spittal ran down her chin. I guessed Novocaine. Manchester would deal with the bother in the uterus. Like it had helped so many times before, with Irish women, rollie cases, taxis, coffees, airport toilets, sobbing, solitude, trauma, travel, Solpadeines, secrets. Jim was accompanying his niece, and he’d see her right, well, as right as he could manage.

‘It needs sorting. Jim. Simple as …’

He nodded again. He promised to look after her very well. He was then to go on to Birmingham, meet up with the brothers.

‘And Jim, when you go on to Paddy’s place … best leave Nick a night in the Travelodge, in the honour of God, last thing she needs is travelling onwards, after … it.’

It.

‘She has a real soft spot far Paddy. So say nothing too bad about him.’

Keep Niquita happy. White chocolate. Topshop, though she mightn’t be up to it, and Solpadeine. Blister pack. Twenty-four. Passport bottom drawer, key here around ma neck. Here. Take it. Marie Stopes. Manchester. Birmingham.

‘Lots of Solpadeine. She’s like myself. And remember ta keep it all ta yarsells. Not a word.’

‘’K.’

She handed him a tower of magazines and a phone charger.

‘OK, OK, Mags, jeez, calm yarself or ya’ll have a proper stroke.’ Jim had the face of a man who remembered none of the exhaustive information he had unwittingly procured for himself.

Michal wheeled in his steel trolley of Monday’s breakfast and brushed hard against Jim as he was leaving in a hurry to get himself organised. The glossy magazines fell asunder. Margaret Rose raised her eyes to heaven as Michal and Jim fumbled on the ground. Her phone rang as Dolly Parton’s ‘Nine to Five’ blared from her laptop. She quieted it. Answering the phone, ‘Ah, shush yarself, pet …’ she said, pawing her rosary beads and waving Jim onwards. ‘I knows yar upset, Niquita. Nick … ya needs to slow down … yar breaking up, love. Hello, hello. Nick … What is it, what’s happened? Nick?’

Pause.

‘Ah, love. What’s all the tears about? I canny make out your words, love … yar in very bad coverage, move around … No, no, it’s not … it’s not me … ah, better.’