Until that moment I hadn’t even thought about her surname, I was such an eejit! The next day, he came into the Lower Room when I was settling her for bed. It was the first time he had set foot inside it since I had come to live there. He made it look small. I didn’t like him standing between me and the door.

–  Is she alright?

–  She’s fine!

–  I’ll leave you in peace … unless … could I hold her?

–  Surely! Take her!

John gathered her up and a smile broke across his face, the like of which I would never be able to describe. It was as if he knew her and she knew him, as if he had been waiting for her all his life. He was so beautiful and with my baby in his arms he looked like an angel when he tipped his lips to her little, dark head and kissed her over and over again, lost to her, lost to himself, oblivious to me as ever. He was a man in love.

He came in every night, smiling, happy, wanting to hold ‘his girl’. I could give him nothing but Serena could give him everything. He changed nappies, his big fingers struggling at first with the pins. He brushed her hair and wrapped her up in her blanket so he could sit with her in his arms and admire her. Her eyes shone up at him. Clever girl, he was all hers.

He was still a switch in my day, but for a different reason, a reason that made me hate myself. I’d be happily chatting and laughing with Bridie and Serena but if I clocked him even looking at us through the window I bolted for the Lower Room, like a mink in a drain. I wanted to keep Serena from him. It was mean like Mammy was mean and I didn’t want to own up to a single drop of her poison. If he ever figured out what I was doing he couldn’t have guessed at why. I was jealous of their love. I couldn’t have been greener if I was the grass on the other side of the fence. Bridie knew, though. I couldn’t hide anything from her. When she questions me I try to explain that he’s not keen on seeing me about the place. He banished me. I’m just doing as I’m told, I tell her, trying not to make it sound like a whine. I’m the eternally innocent party. She doesn’t buy it for a second.