I meet my father in the back pantry. He’s getting thinner and more precious with every day that passes. Two big sinews stick out on his neck and even one day’s silvery beard growth makes him look vulnerable, like a much older man. I want to reach out and pull him to me, to rock him like a baby, but he’d only die of embarrassment. Instead I offer him the Irish substitute for love.

–  Tea?

–  Aye, tea would be grand.

I make them both mugs of tea, lumps of scone bread that I bake myself and pile it high with my home-made jam. He likes to take his in the tick-tock of the kitchen so he doesn’t have to struggle out of his wellies.

–  How’s the waynes?

–  Grand, Daddy, they’re all grand.

–  Good, good … ah … Mary?

–  Yes?

–  I heard at the mart that John’s about.

–  Aye, I got a postcard off him just this morning.

–  Is he … is he …

–  He says he’ll call this way at some point.

–  Good, good.

–  There’s no need for you to tell Mammy?

–  No need, no need at all.

She reaches for her tea in the Good Room without taking her eyes off the television and doesn’t burden me with thank yous.

–  Ah, finally! I thought you were going to keep me waiting all day?

–  Hello, Mammy!

While I’m rubbing in the Deep Heat, she has a sudden rush of blood to the head and lets slip a kind word before she can snatch it back.

–  This jam isn’t terrible, she says.

My eyes fill up in spite of myself. Suddenly her papery skin is a reminder that even she will slip away from me one day and I know there will be more sadness to swallow. She’s a monster but she’s my monster. A whiff of sweat rises above the menthol cloud and I lunge at it like a drowning man for a twig. I ask her straight out if she was able to look after herself properly without my help. Well! I might as well have pulled the pin from a grenade. For a woman who was supposed to ease herself in and out of chairs for six weeks she was up and in my face before I had time to flinch.

–  How dare you! I’m not going to take bloody insolence from YOU!

–  I’m not being insolent! I’m being kind …

This truth took us both by surprise. She settled down and cleared her throat to nearly out-mazurka me for the second time in a week.

–  I can’t manage the bath but I have a system.

–  A system?

–  Aye, a system. My own system!

–  What kind of a system?