‘I can’t do it, Dad. I can’t leave them.’

‘If you don’t do it this way it’ll be much more traumatic for you all.’

‘What will Lara say if you arrive home with a dog?’

‘I’ll see if Mrs O’Malley will take the dog. She sounds fond of the thing.’

That scenario sets up such conflict that I can’t sort through the jumble of images that accompany it. At least Herbie knows her, and seems to like her, but he’d be looking every day at his empty house opposite, and no one could explain to him that it’s only temporary and Mrs O’Malley would probably make him sleep on the back porch on his own and he’d pine and she wouldn’t like his loud whining and she’s too fat to walk him and she’d give him way too many treats and I can’t bear the thought that he might like her and my son will break in two without his big shaggy beating comfort blanket. And.

‘Maybe she’d take them both?’ The words escape me before I’ve had time to process them. My father looks relieved, instantly, as if this is something he hadn’t even thought of. He could do the right thing by sidestepping the issue and Lara won’t need to be involved.

‘You could pay her’ slips out of my mouth. I quickly zip my lips, like my father taught me to when I was being particularly rowdy. He’d mime closing a zipper over my mouth and the action of it would have me feeling stitched up for the day.

‘I could,’ he murmurs. ‘Of course I could. I would keep a close eye.’

I wish I hadn’t planted that image of our neighbour as a witch in Tommy’s impressionable mind. I want to see him like he was yesterday morning in Mrs O’Malley’s kitchen, with his book, his dog and, hell, his milk. His little contented face. He could even eat animals, if he were lied to.

In the morning, at first light, my father walks over the road to Mrs O’Malley, who’s awake, on high alert, having been forewarned of this intervention. I go to the fridge, finish what’s left of the bottle, slip another two from my emergency stash under the sink into my suitcase. Mrs O’Malley bustles in like she owns the place, nods at me, then speaks directly to my father: ‘Don’t worry, Mr Moriarty, I’ll look after them well.’

I battle an urge to scream, to slap the woman, to throw my arms around her and say thank you, thank you, be good to them, love them, but not too much, all my thoughts tossed and rushing, each one contradicting the last.

‘I’ll come straight back, Mary, after I’ve dropped Sonya off. We can discuss further arrangements then.’

Am I imagining it or do I see euro signs flash in front of the hag’s face? A swarm of them. Is this the only reason she’s here? How much has she taken from my father over the years to spy on me and my son? Even as all these thoughts barrage me, I know this is the best option for now. They are both familiar with her. Why did I plant that terrifying tale in Tommy’s mind? Could I get my father to talk him down from that one – like he used to with me, when I was having night terrors about cancer eating away at him from the inside, or me, or the rest of the world? You couldn’t see it in my mother, yet it claimed her, all of her. I remember his soft, soothing voice in the middle of the night, telling me it was all just a dream, nothing to be afraid of, just an overactive imagination. And those Pierrot dolls staring down at me in the darkness, eyes flashing, gearing up.