“I’ll tell her,” said Becky’s mother. She was crouching down over me now, her eyes full of tears. “I still don’t understand it. How could he? They’re so beautiful, so trusting. How could he have done it?”

“Done what?” Joe asked.

“Nothing,” she said, standing up abruptly and moving away. “It’s nothing. Anyway, he won’t be doing it again – I made sure of that.” She looked at me. “You’ll give him a good life, won’t you? He deserves it.” And then she was gone, hurrying away from us back into the hospital.

“Botheration,” said Joe after a while. “I never asked her what you were called, did I? Never mind. New life. New name. As it should be. I think I’m going to call you Paddywack. Marion would like that.”

I had a place to sleep, on a blanket right by the baking oven in Joe’s Tattyvan. I loved the warmth of the place and the smell of it and the cheese fillings too. I missed Becky, of course I did, just like I missed Patrick before her. I didn’t forget them, they were a part of my life, a part of me. I knew how much they had loved me, how much I loved them and owed them. But now I was with Joe, and I knew we’d get on fine, that like Patrick and Becky, he was someone who would look after me, someone I could trust completely.

“Knick Knack, Paddywack”

Joe Mahoney didn’t live in a house, not any more. He lived in a barge, on the canal. He’d been living there for nearly two years, and in all that time he’d lived there alone. This was the first time he’d ever invited anyone else on board. In fact, one way or another, Joe had been living alone for very much longer than that. He’d got accustomed to being on his own, and was wondering, as he drove home in the Tattyvan with Paddywack sitting beside him looking out of the window, whether he’d really done the right thing in taking him on.

It had been on the spur of the moment. He was still trying to work out why he’d agreed to it quite so easily, quite so quickly. Maybe it had been meant, he thought, fated in some way. After all, this was his last day on the road with the Tattyvan, the end of an era for him, and the beginning of another. There was something else though. The dog had a familiar look about him, almost as if old Paddywack had come back from the grave – not a lurcher maybe, but a greyhound was close enough. He had the same gentle look in his eye. And perhaps in the back of his mind was the thought that for what he was going to have to do, it would be good not to be alone. He hadn’t been looking forward to the days that lay ahead, not one bit. It was just something that had to be done. Now at least he’d have someone to talk to, someone to be with.