‘See, Shane,’ he said.

‘Stephen, no?’ I said.

‘No, no, I mean Shane …’

‘You’re Shane?’

‘Jeez, sorry,’ he said, as I glanced at the coffee, Costa, and attempted to guess the contents. Americano. Double shot. No milk. Actually – coconut milk cappuccino. Double shot. ‘I’m Stephen. I have. I mean. I’m here to. Hold on … one sec …’ He tried to open the man-bag. The zip was sticky. ‘I’m being very unclear,’ he jittered. ‘I’m Shane’s brother, Stephen, the ma didn’t call us both Shane.’ He tried to laugh. Couldn’t.

‘Shit. This about Wi-Fi?’ I blurted. ‘I’m genuinely sorry, it’s just I’m so sick, and so sick bored, and I was so bored, I didn’t think it would matter, I mean, I tried to talk to him, but I was afraid I was making a nuisance of myself. Look, I’ll fix up with you for it … it’s just I have no money with me … I mean, I have money, they just don’t recommend it … keeping it here.’

‘What?’ he said, perplexed. ‘Wi-Fi? No, no, thing is I hadn’t seen him in a long time. Do you need money?’ He rattled in the leg of his jeans.

‘No, no, sorry … right,’ I whispered.

‘None of us had, you know …’

‘Cared?’

‘Visited.’ He coughed and put his fist to his mouth. ‘Maybe you just don’t understand, you see …’

‘Right,’ I said, lifting my inflection at the end, question.

‘Not after Da … you know, died … oh, I don’t know, it all became too much, the care and the minding and all.’

A text lit up my home screen.

My mother.

Good morning, Love. x.

I turned the phone upside down.

‘And the carers rely on us more, you know, like the more we were there, see, when we weren’t there they didn’t seem to need us at all, you know, like I found this odd, if I could have chatted to him, and left everything, you know, the way it was when he was, oh, God … this is hard,’ Stephen went on, lifting the white plastic lid up and down on the paper mug.

‘Mind if I?’ He motioned to the edge of the bed.

‘No, you’re fine, sit …’

He sat down on the end of the narrow bed, fidgeting.

‘Anyway, he was always so fucking cranky too. You know?’

He started to cry.

‘Ah, here,’ I said, offering him a tissue. ‘No need for that, it’s OK, don’t cry … please …’

‘No, no, it’s not OK, but nothing was right and you know …’

I nodded.

‘Ma just couldn’t lift him, and it was so expensive with the feeds and the lifting and really it was too hard, too much … much too much. You know?’ he said, head bent low, and rocked his body forward, allowing its eventual collapse deep into the bed. He picked up the Costa cup and set it down again. I would have liked to see the action his lips made when he drank, but he didn’t. There was certainly a resemblance to his brother, around the lug of the ear and across the nose bridge. Their knees were identical.