‘Stop that nonsense, Claire Hegarty, at once, stop that nonsense at once and sit yourself back down,’ Jane bawled out, abandoning her singing and knitting, at Claire who was attempting to raise a coffee cup to her lips.

I circled my finger at my temple. Margaret Rose laughed.

‘Oh, please,’ Claire said, hesitantly, and then sipped from her morning’s coffee.

‘Keep singing, Jane, ’twas lovely …’ Margaret Rose prompted, devilment lurking in one eye.

‘Sit down, sit DOWN. Sit back down at your desk immediately, MISS Claire, or you’ll stand out on that tiled area for the rest of the day … d’you HEAR ME? You see, Miss Hegarty, you are an awful sort of a girl, you really are not behaving like a scholarly student at all with this sort of ruffian behaviour. Now let that boy’s hair go, or I am absolutely warning you. I will get my ruler and you’ll know all about it.’

The word all went down her nose, slowly. She was so terrifyingly precise.

‘Uh, oh …’ Margaret Rose said, switching on her radio.

Don’t think Twice, it’s All Right

Molly blew upwards at her pink bandana, as she arrived with meds in a grey kidney dish. It fell back into her eyes. ‘Well, good morning, Sinéad, nice to see ya looking a bit brighter. Some drugs?’ she said, attempting cheer. ‘Hi ya feeling, hun? Blow into this, no other arm, too many in there, thanks, oh, wait; OK, we’ll go with this one. Jeez, you’re like a pincushion. How’s this one feel? Naw. This OK?’

I winced.

She flicked her finger a few times to the back of my hand. I winced again, it was a cold pain, sharp; as she flicked the swollen hands, clear water ran from the little cannula holes dotted on my fat hand.

‘Sorry, darl. OK, I’ll just try maybe flush them through, OK?’ Molly said, distracted.

‘’K.’

Her eyes were darkly dull and pale ivory make-up congealed in the pores around her nose and in the creases of her eyelids.

Michal arched his head round the door and his panda eyes were even more pronounced. He shot a glance to my hands and winced. I shut my eyes.

‘OK … now, hun, a little pinch, sharp, you feel that?’ Molly said.

‘Yeah, yeah …’ I said, my voice unreliable.

‘Really, you sure?’

Yes. I’m sure. Pain is pain. Visceral. Sharp. Pounding. Tightening. Slicing. Throbbing. Separating. Forgetting. Losing. They tell you it’s entirely in your head, and yes, precisely, it’s in my head, my pain, in my fucking head, processed by me, my brain. All in my head.

Bob Dylan finished his song. Margaret Rose turned down the radio and picked up the phone and called Niquita, to ask, in her coded way, if she was all right. If it was all right? If it hurt. If she was all right again? And the words were brief. Margaret Rose let out a long sigh, staring at the phone after the call ended, then shook it, maybe wondering if there was a static that had reduced her conversation with her daughter to such stilted fragments and not at all like the chats they were capable of having.