Life took on a different rhythm, with Lizzie coming and going. She was jolly when she was at Johns Farm, fussing over the children and making John laugh at the stuff she got up to in London. When they started comparing tube-train rides and pubs, I tried not to look jealous even though a little green-eyed maggot was chewing through my heart. I wanted to be the worldly one; I wanted to be ordering drinks at bars and hailing black cabs. I wanted to be the one he was paying attention to, just once. Sometimes it felt as if the fabric of the sofa had grown over me and no one had noticed.

We refused the invitation to have our Christmas dinner at The Hill for the sixteenth year in a row and we didn’t extend an invitation for them to come to us. The hostility was burning a hole in me and I resolved to try harder. My father showed up; as usual he wasn’t ‘stopping’, just dropping by to wish us all the cheer of the season and he had a pile of stuff for the waynes, including a selection box each. The rain was beating down and he had on his ancient drover’s coat, gone shiny round the pockets and buttons. I managed to get him past the half-door where he stood in a puddle of his own making. Would it be alright if himself and Matthew came down on Boxing Night to play cards with the waynes and us as usual? Of course it would, Daddy, I said as the boys and Bridie took the stuff and put it under the tree. There was a bottle of whiskey and another of sherry, all wrapped in the cheapest paper Mammy could find.

When we were on our own he reached into one of the huge pockets and handed me a damp little cat that had been soaking up raindrops. That’s just for yourself, he says before turning back for The Hill. I thought my head would burst. It was a kitten of every colour: black, white, brown and orange with little amber eyes! I buried my face in her furry belly. She wasn’t much but she was mine. I called her Ginger after Lizzie Magee and, before the day was out, she had every claw she owned lodged in my buttery heart. I told you there’d be other cats, says Bridie as she wipes the tears off my cheeks with the heel of her hand.

27

I saw in 1999 with Ginger in my lap and a whiskey in my hand. Auntie Eileen and Bernie had come with beers and we laughed the night away, playing Scrabble until the children got sick of us cheating and dancing until they nearly passed clean out with embarrassment.