As Kathleen watched Dr Cole writing down everything Peggy had told him, she thought how like his father he had become. Every day of the week, Brendan Cole had half a dozen Peggys in his surgery, women who came to see him about problems which had little to do with their health and more to do with the circumstances they lived in, so the sight before him today was a familiar one. Peggy blew her nose noisily into the handkerchief, dabbed at her eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Nolan,’ he said. ‘I can’t write a letter to the dock board instructing them what to do with their own property, I just can’t. I can have a word with your Paddy, though, if you think it will help? Because I have seen your husband and I think there must be some mistake. I can find nothing wrong with his back and I certainly haven’t referred him to the hospital.’

Peggy gasped and looked as though she were about to faint again.

‘Look, there are two solutions to this problem. The first is for me to have a word with Paddy. I’ll check him out again, but I’m afraid that isn’t going to have any impact on how often he goes down the steps, or on who your new neighbours are, so you will have to think of something else to deal with that one. Have you spoken to the dock board, to Mr Heartfelt?’

Peggy looked horrified. ‘No, no, I’m not going there, I’m not, ever again.’

‘That’s where she was, Brendan – I mean, Dr Cole – she must have been asking them herself, were you, Peggy? Is that why you paid your rent down there?’

Peggy lied to her friend for the second time and nodded.

‘And what did they say?’ asked Dr Cole.

Peggy looked up. ‘They didn’t get a chance, I fainted,’ she said.

‘Well then, you may simply have to consider keeping yourself to yourself when they move in; don’t give Sergeant and Mrs Wright any cause to address you.’

Peggy repeated his advice disbelievingly, ‘Keep yourself to yourself…’ while she screwed up her face in a look of amazement. No one, absolutely no one on the four streets, kept themselves to themselves. Even the children joked that sometimes they forgot where they lived or who their actual mother was, they spent so much time in and out of each other’s houses. Mothers likewise joked that they forgot which kids were their own. Kathleen could see this was all going nowhere.

‘Are there no tablets, doctor?’ she asked.