‘She came back with her beautiful head down. In repentance. You should never hang your head in shame,’ Jane said. ‘I just can’t, for my whole life, understand why she came back. Never … NeverNever. I’ll never ever understand why … wasn’t like her at all, at all …’ Jane began lifting her shoulders up and down again as she swatted at something in front of her face and grimaced. ‘I was so troubled to hear everyone saying how ashamed she looked, I didn’t get to talk to her properly, for once she gave herself back to Clifden, she was chaperoned, always chaperoned, until they got her into the Home and then … chauffeured on.’

‘Did ya try?’ Margaret Rose asked. ‘Did ya try ta tell her how ya felt? Did ya still love her?’

Jane looked hurt, stung. ‘Of course I did,’ she spat. ‘I still love her, and you can’t just stop loving like that, like it’s a tap.’

‘Sorry,’ Margaret Rose said, ‘I didn’a mean ta upset ya. It’s just so … sad.’

‘It is sad. And what else is sad is that neighbours went around as if this was a good thing, as though this made them feel better. What did it matter to them, to any of them? Their tea would still be in the same place, their boots laced, their boats with nets, nothing Ann did would bother them, upset the running order of their life, and yet we were so much of everyone’s else’s business. It was all they spoke of for some time. But it wasn’t like Ann –’ Jane was crying now and I was crying too – ‘to give in. Ah, here now, keep your chin up,’ she said to me, watching me dry my eye corners with a tissue, ‘especially with your lovely skin. Did you get any tea? I’ll ready some for you now if you so wish?’

I was thumbing the cracker. I waved it weakly at her. ‘I’m OK,’ I said. Jane blew her nose in her bed sheets.

‘I wrote to her, but never heard a thing. I went to Dublin, tried very hard to forget her.’

‘Really?’ Margaret Rose asked as she pulled at some tissues from their elaborate box.

‘Don’t “really” me. Don’t you think I feel guilty? D’you think I just got on with my life? What do you take me for? She was my …’ She stopped and Margaret Rose reached forward, dropping sweet papers on the ground, got out of bed and climbed in beside the old woman. Margaret Rose held her and began passing her tissues. ‘I forgot about her on purpose,’ Jane said, sobbing into Margaret Rose’s chest. ‘Imagine forgetting about someone you love on purpose? But that’s who I am. And look at you, with the royal name, what do we make of that?’ She laughed weakly and looked at me. ‘And mymy, aren’t you beautiful too?’

The bra was gone fully astray now and hung around her waist like a make-up belt.