The date was set for the following Sunday and Kathleen would be allowed to attend too. It would be a celebration of sorts – not something The Hill had ever seen before. Holy smokes, says Bridie when Mammy’s marched off again, all business, I never thought I’d live to see the day that I’d have my American Tans under the same table as that bloody auld trout! Serena and me cracked up; it did seem other-worldly. I’d not had more than a cup of tea in the house that I used to call home in the five years since I’d left it without even realising.

That night, as we were getting ready for bed – not that I could sleep with two babies juggling for space right under my heart – John added to the rarity of the day by speaking to me. I stopped poking and fussing with the pillows to gawp at him where he sat stripped to the waist.

–  What does she want?

–  Mammy? I don’t know. Kathleen tells me she’s been watching the television, that terrible Fair City programme on RTÉ, and she made some comment about her own family being not so bad after all! She’s even been a bit nicer to Kathleen since …

–  The Lord works in mysterious ways.

–  He does!

I thought he’d say more but he didn’t. When I’d propped myself up for the night ahead, he flicked the lamp off and left us both in the dark. I felt him brush his lips against my stomach. He was soon asleep, his breathing deep and regular. His children settled down too, in tune with him already. Would we ever have a fat chat, like the ones me and Joe Loughrey used to have? Likely not as we liked to keep ourselves to ourselves. I put in the time until three o’clock watching his back rise and fall where the moon caught the shine of his skin.

The Hill was unchanged. Mammy met us in the front hall and pointed out the Holy Water fount in case we’d forget to bless ourselves on the way into her Good Catholic house. We had her ‘own chicken roast’, swimming in butter, sausage-meat stuffing and roast spuds done in chicken fat, sweet shallots, carrots and cabbage. The sherry trifle was loaded with fruit salad under the whipped cream. As always, Mammy had pulled the cherries out of the tin of Del Monte Fruit Cocktail and kept them to decorate the whipped-cream top. Every mouthful was delicious and we scraped the plates.