Though I never knew them, I feel their absence myself. They pull at me like my own little Roisin-that-never-was – we have that in common, only that. How much worse must it be for her when they grew whole right under her heart? We didn’t have depression in my day, she says, we offered it up to Good Holy God. Was it their passing which set her in stone? Auntie Eileen doesn’t care.

–  You don’t have to look after that fuckin’ rancid auld bitch, she says, just because you’re the only unfortunate on the doorstep! Oh no, no, no, no! She can go to Hell where she belongs!

She’s right. But you only get one mammy in this life, presumably because two would kill you, so I go while I still have strength enough to take her on, warts and all.

–  I’m not being MUCKY! I’m being practical!

–  Well, if you’re too busy doing whatever it is you think you’re doing then I’m sorry I bothered you! Truly! I’ll manage on my own!

–  Jesus, Mammy! I’ll be there in five minutes!

Pick a saint, any saint, and she could try their patience. She doesn’t like that I’ve set myself up a little business; it smacks of pride, of a girl with ideas above her station. She is doing everything she can to tear me down from my pedestal. I get the range up to boil the kettle and make a pot of tea. I won’t rush myself to please her, No Siree Bob! I have postcards to read, three postcards that were lying on the mat inside the half-door this morning and each one is screaming to be read.

The first is from darling Kathleen. She’s been gone for five months already – took to travelling when she’d got in her thirty-five years of nursing in Derry. The second is from Lizzie Magee. She’s in Africa for the third time. She’s obsessed with the place. Poor Kenny McGuckin: he hates the heat. The rashes race from his toes to the top of his head.

The third is from him, the lost husband. The slope and loops of his handwriting scald me before I have the sense to stuff it into my pocket. So, he’s made his decision?

I hope today is not one of the days that Mammy wants to talk. My heart won’t take it. The blasted TV is to blame. It has cut more corners off my mother in a matter of months than a whole herd of Catholic clergy did in a lifetime. She’s been trapped in front it with her new hip and the overexposure has finally hit home. She has come to understand that everyone outside The Hill can talk and she doesn’t like being behind the times.