‘No you don’t,’ Marjorie said. ‘I’ll visit twice a week, I’ll do your shopping, but that’s it.’

‘So you’re throwing me to the wolves?’

Marjorie didn’t lose it. She kept her cool. ‘I don’t know if you are capable of real love, Mam . . .’

‘Is that right?’ Vera said.

‘That’s right.’

‘You better go, then.’

‘I will. See you on Saturday,’ Marjorie said.

‘Don’t bother.’

‘I will see you on Saturday, Mother, and when I do try to paste a smile on that miserable mug of yours,’ Marjorie said, and she walked out of her mother’s house with her head held high and the tightness in her chest slightly loosening.

Eight months after Rabbit died, Marjorie walked into the bank to be told that there was a voluntary redundancy package available to all. She jumped at it.

During that year, Davey Hayes became Marjorie’s only real friend. She went for drinks with some of the girls she worked with in the bank, but she knew that as soon as she left, their relationship would end. It didn’t matter to her. She had enough going on. Davey was excited for her when she told him of her impending redundancy.

‘So what now?’ he asked, and she didn’t know. For the first time in Marjorie’s life nothing was mapped out, but strangely, she’d never felt so in control.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Molly

Chapter Thirty-Five

Molly

MOLLY’S MOTHER USED TO say ‘Get up or get out.’ So in the immediate aftermath of Rabbit’s death she did just that. Her house no longer felt like home. The urge was to keep moving, keep busy, fill the days with tasks, shopping, voluntary work with the homeless societies, collecting, cleaning, feeding soup to the disenfranchised, the alcoholics, the addicts, the poor souls with nowhere to go. BR – before Rabbit’s loss – she visited the church once or twice a week and always brought a bit of polish and a duster to clean the place up as she prayed. Sometimes she sat but never for long. She knew where the brush was kept so often she grabbed it and swept the aisles.