Peggy just didn’t know how that had happened. Before the Dohertys had left for Mayo, she and Maura had washed their blankets on the same day every single year without fail. Peggy had no mangle, but she and Maura would carry the heavy wet blankets, one by one, out of her yard, down the entry and back into Maura’s yard, feed them through the mangle and then carry them back in before throwing them over Peggy’s line. There was never any knowing when a sunny day would appear, but when it did, Maura would bang her mop on Peggy’s kitchen wall and Peggy would realise it was time to wash the blankets. She had meant to do it, the intention was there, as was the mangle, still standing in Maura and Tommy’s yard, but as she often did with so many things in life, including in the man she had chosen to marry, Peggy had failed miserably and the bed bugs had breathed a sigh of relief.

She crossed the few steps to the sash window, her bare thighs slapping together because, although she was only forty, she tottered on arthritic feet. They were made worse by the excessive weight she carried, thanks to living on bags of broken biscuits while she fed what meat and vegetables they had to her husband and children. She flung the window upwards, allowing the sound of the church bells to fill the room.

‘Jesus Christ, be quiet, will you?’ Paddy muttered, almost under his breath.

‘Stop your blaspheming, you fat slob.’ Peggy folded her arms across her winceyette nightdress to protect herself from the fresh breeze. Grey, almost threadbare and peppered with the occasional cigarette burn, it strained at the seams of Peggy’s bulging frame. Dipping down, she stuck her neck out of the window and scanned the blackened chimney tops perched above the rows of two-up, two-down terraced streets to see who was awake and had coal to light a fire this Wednesday, the day before payday. Her eyes narrowed as Maggie Trott opened her front door to usher her large tabby cat indoors and stood as she always did in her doorway. Peggy watched as she pulled her long knitted cardigan to her body and scanned the street to see who was about. As the milk cart trundled around the corner, Maggie Trott quickly stepped inside.

‘She’s off to get the tea for him,’ said Peggy.

‘Who is?’ said big Paddy from halfway into his pillow.

‘Mrs Trott. I wonder if he knocks anything off her bill for that? I’m surprised his Gladys allows it.’

Paddy snorted with laughter. ‘He’s playing with fire, that one. If Gladys knew, she would chop his tackle off. Tell Maggie Trott to bring me one up next.’