She got out of the car and ran across the road. Molly watched Kyle open the door and her granddaughter disappear inside. She took out the old photographs of her daughter, Johnny, Davey and the boys back in the day, featuring clothes and hairstyles once considered high fashion, but now dated. She was entertained by the backgrounds of patterned wallpaper and brown, orange and yellow carpets, and what appeared to be a national obsession with wicker furniture – there was some kind of wicker furniture in nearly every shot. God, we hadn’t a clue. The only person that could have been lifted out of that era into the current one was Rabbit, with her long sleek hair and her rocker T-shirt and jeans. ‘You never changed, love,’ she said, and then she picked up a shot of Rabbit when she was younger and donning an eyepatch, thick-framed spectacles and long ponytails either side of her head. ‘Oh yeah, you did.’

Juliet arrived back at the car with Kyle.

‘Hiya, Mrs Hayes,’ he said, scrambling into the back seat. He’d grown at least a foot in the past year.

‘The last time I saw you I was running you over,’ Molly said.

‘That’s right, I still have a scar on me elbow.’ He showed it to her.

‘Where?’

‘There,’ he said, pointing to a small faded scar.

‘That’s not a scar,’ she said, pulling out a photo of a beaming Rabbit showing off a long, stitched cut on her forearm. ‘That’s a scar.’

He put his elbow away.

‘So are you staying over, or wha’?’ Molly asked.

‘If that’s all right, Mrs Hayes.’

‘That’s fine, son. Well, strap in, kids, we’re going to the northside.’

‘Deadly,’ Kyle said, and Molly looked into her mirror in time to catch her granddaughter’s smile. Sorry. I’m so sorry.

Chapter Forty-Six: Juliet

Chapter Forty-Six

Juliet

JULIET TOOK KYLE ON a walk around her grandparents’ local area. She pointed to the national school on their left. ‘That’s where Ma went to school.’

‘Oh.’

She pointed to the church. ‘That’s where she made her Holy Communion.’

‘I thought she was an atheist.’

‘She was, but Gran and the school told her she had to do it, so she did. She was only seven.’

‘Did she get confirmed?’ Kyle asked.

‘Yeah, but only because me gran threatened to never, ever speak to her again if she didn’t.’

‘So she was a Catholic, then.’

‘When she turned eighteen she wrote the Church a letter.’

‘Saying wha’?’

‘I don’t know, something like, you’re a bunch of paedos, criminals and murderers and I’m out.’

‘That would do it,’ Kyle said, staring at the building. ‘It’s a cool church,’ Kyle said.

‘Ma saw Mother Teresa in there.’

‘No way, she’s famous.’

‘Yeah.’