‘She had cancer in her fuckin’ brain. She didn’t know what she wanted.’ Sorry.

‘That’s not true, Ma,’ Grace said.

‘She gave her daughter to a man-child who lives on a bus. Rabbit was gone long before she died.’ Sorry.

‘No. That’s not true, Molly,’ Jack said.

‘Kids, if you don’t get your poxy coats and get into the car I’ll murder you myself,’ Lenny said. Stephen was having dinner at Charlene’s; it was just Bernard, Ryan and Jeff.

‘Is it all right if we take the chocolate log?’ Ryan asked.

‘Go on, son,’ Molly said.

‘Thanks, Gran,’ he said, picking up the plate.

‘Happy Christmas, Gran, Granda, love you,’ Bernard said.

‘Don’t kill each other,’ Jeff said.

‘Hide the bleedin’ oranges, Granda,’ Ryan shouted as he closed the door behind him.

Grace and Lenny left them to it. ‘I’ll call you later, Ma,’ she said, and Molly nodded.

‘I want it stopped.’

‘Can’t. I signed a contract back in May.’

‘You lying bastard.’

‘I didn’t lie. I told you it was happening. You just didn’t believe me.’

‘I’ll sue you.’

‘You can’t.’

‘I’ll find a way.’

‘I don’t know why you’re so afraid – if you read it, you’d see how beautiful it is,’ he said.

‘Beautiful, oh right . . . Yeah, it was all so beautiful. A young woman being mutilated and poisoned, pissing and shitting, bleeding and crying, and don’t forget the begging. It was special, all right.’

‘The book is much more than that. It’s about love and joy and all that good stuff that you and I were a part of, don’t you remember, Molly?’

‘I want you out,’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Get out, Jack.’

‘And where am I supposed to go?’

‘How about your new friend Derek’s? I really don’t care. You’re not welcome here anymore.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘Get out,’ she said, and he knew she meant it.

She received a call from Grace two hours later.

‘So me da is on the sofa.’

‘Fine.’

‘How long is this going to last, Ma?’

‘Forever, unless you kick him out. Maybe rent him that fucking caravan,’ she said, and she hung up the phone and she cried her eyes out because if she couldn’t protect her child in life the very least she should have done was protect her in death. Sorry.

Her marriage was in the toilet and the court case hung over her like a massive weight. She pretended she was fine about it – she was Molly Hayes, after all; she’d faced worse than this. This was nothing. Except it was something. She’d broken the law and now she would face the wrath of a court. She lost sleep over it. She’d never tell anyone. Sorry.

*