Davey shrugged his shoulders. His sister was right. It was bad enough looking down on Rabbit’s corpse in a house full of people during daylight hours, but with just the Hayeses and in darkness, well . . . that was just . . . wrong.

They sat together at the back of a half-empty bus, the heat from the engine blowing through a grid warming the backs of their legs and slowly rising upwards.

‘Like the good old days,’ Davey said, looking out at the night sky. The combination of the moving bus, the passing lights, the warm air circulating around his nether regions and the whiskey was having a hypnotic effect on his overloaded, burdened, tired mind.

‘You’re slurring.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘This isn’t you trying to get laid, is it, Davey?’

He laughed. ‘I couldn’t think of anything worse right now.’

She smiled. ‘Me neither.’

‘I thought death was supposed to make people horny.’

‘Maybe it’s impending death,’ she said. He thought about that; maybe she was right. They did share that awkward kiss outside the hospice . . .

‘Hmmm, well, the way I feel right now, I may never have sex again,’ he said.

‘Yeah, well, you’re a parent now – apparently it has a massive effect on libido.’

‘How did that happen again?’ He smiled but that smile didn’t reach his eyes. He was scared, really scared. What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?

Marjorie’s ringing phone interrupted the beginnings of what could have been a mild panic attack; she lifted it out of her handbag and the word ‘mother’ appeared on the screen. She dropped it back in her bag as fast as if it were a hot potato.

‘You’re not going to speak to her,’ Davey said.

‘She didn’t even come to the wake.’ Marjorie spat each word out in anger. ‘Rabbit was the only real friend I ever had. Molly Hayes took care of me. I spent more time in your house than I did in my own and it suited her. She lives down the bloody road. The least she could have done is paid her respects.’

‘You know what she’s like.’

‘I do, that’s the problem.’

‘And Rabbit wasn’t your only real friend.’

‘Don’t start, Davey.’

‘I’m your friend.’

‘I spoke to Rabbit on the phone every day. When’s the last time I spoke to you?’

‘Just now, yesterday, the day before.’

‘On the phone.’

‘I don’t really do phone calls.’

‘Yeah well, if we were friends you probably would have made an exception when my husband found out we’d slept together. Or maybe on the day he booted me out of my own house. Or when the separation agreement was signed. Or that first night I spent alone in a one-bed apartment—’

‘OK, I get it,’ he said. He couldn’t stand to hear a laundry list of his selfishness and inadequacies. Not now.