‘I miss the four streets too,’ he whispered. ‘I miss the craic with the men, the games of footie, darts. And I miss work, I do; you don’t get much conversation from a cow’s udder. And the pub – I miss the Anchor. You are a grand barmaid, Maura, but it’s a fact, Babs is better.’

Maura gave him a playful jab in the ribs. ‘Oi, you, if that woman cried, there would be a landslide on her face, she wears that much make-up. Would you like me to start doing that, eh, chatting up the fellas in here?’ She could sense rather than see his smile.

‘Just think,’ he said, ‘it’s the carnival soon. They’ll all be revving up over there, getting ready. Remember how excited the kids all got with you organising everything and Angela helping Miss Devlin last year with the games and being so full of herself, she was unbearable to live with until the Tuesday after the Whitsun Holiday?’

Maura didn’t speak; she was lost in her own memories of company and banter. She thought about the Friday nights when they all got together down at the pub, the friendships forged in adversity, the making of the bunting at her kitchen table, half of the women from the streets squeezing in and out of her kitchen, the steam from the kettle permanently boiling for more tea. Babies on breasts, women seeking tea and sympathy or simply a word of advice from Maura who was regarded with the same esteem and respect as Dr Cole or Mother Superior.

Tommy, wandering in his own thoughts, recalled the O’Prey boys, the fastest runners in the north-west, who helped him to run around the streets and houses with sacks of potatoes that had fallen off the back of a ship, tipping out an enamel washing-up bowl’s worth to each house that was short of money, his heart pounding in case a bizzie walked up the road and caught them because he couldn’t run as fast as Callum or Jimmy. But most of all, he missed visiting his Kitty.

Moving to Ireland had absorbed all their time and energy and it had occurred to him that, since they had got here, Kitty had faded. Even the sharpest of the pain in his heart, all that had remained from those dark days, had gone and he even missed it because it was this pain that kept his Kitty alive and, even though the priest was dead and gone, even though Kitty and all she had suffered at his hands had been avenged, he still didn’t feel as though he had done enough.

As she so often did, Maura read his mind. ‘I miss our Kitty so much,’ she said.