The body arrived at the Hayes household at exactly 5 p.m. that day. The neighbours came out of their homes just as the hearse pulled up. They stood in their gardens and made signs of the cross as the two men in suits rolled Rabbit onto the road. Force-of-Nature Molly stood on the front step flanked by her family: Jack to her left wearing his back brace and crying like a baby; Deer-Caught-in-Headlights Davey beside a deeply sad Grace, his hand clasping hers, the way he did when they were kids and she walked him to school. Grace’s boys – Stephen, Bernard, Ryan and Jeffrey – stood behind them. Marjorie sat with Juliet on the stairs. The child was still zonked, staring at the wall.

Grace watched her little sister being wheeled up the driveway in a brown box while the whole neighbourhood stood in their gardens, heads bowed in solidarity and quietly thanking God it wasn’t one of theirs. It was incredibly difficult for her. I have the gene. She didn’t let it show. She buried it deep. The funeral directors stalled by the gate and Grace was suddenly transported back to the 1980s and a sixteen-year-old Johnny Faye in his ripped jeans, long leather jacket and soft curly hair was sitting on the wall in front of her. She saw twelve-year-old gawky Rabbit with her long ponytails, her big thick-framed glasses and her eyepatch, there to correct a lazy eye. She was crying. He had his arm around her. She was crying because back then, aged eighteen, Grace was voluptuous, with wild red hair and a pretty face, and Rabbit was jealous. ‘No one will be as beautiful as you, Rabbit,’ he told her. He was right. Rabbit was something special her whole life, even with big thick-framed glasses and a dodgy eye. Grace by contrast only felt special for a very short period of time. Silent Ed tripped on a crack in the pavement, bringing Grace back into the present. Vincent gave him a dirty look. He cast his eyes downwards. Everyone parted to let them enter. No one really knew where to stand. Molly directed the coffin as though it were traffic.

‘Come this way. No. A little to the left. No. My left. No. Sorry. Right. A little to the right. Stop.’ She stood back.

When Rabbit was positioned in the room, Vincent took the lid off the coffin. Everyone stood back and automatically blessed themselves. Quietly the two men exited the room, leaving the bereaved to grieve. Molly stood over her youngest, dressed in her own clothes, light make-up and her favourite, perfectly coiffed, blonde wig. She looked exactly like herself.

‘There you are, love.’ Overcome, Molly needed a chair. Davey ran into the kitchen and placed one under his mum’s bum. ‘Perfect,’ she said, then she turned to Marjorie. ‘Who loves ya, Marjorie?’

‘Molly does,’ Marjorie said. Molly reached out for Marjorie’s hand and kissed it and held it close.