Kitty used to mother them all and, being a mini Maura, guided them and made sure every game was played fairly and that they all got in through the school gates on time. Even Malachi had listened to Kitty, but then one day everything had altered. The priest got murdered, Kitty went away and then she died, and not long after that the Dohertys had left and nothing had been the same since. He was very sure that all of these things were connected, but no one ever spoke of it. On a morning such as this, he would have run into the Doherty kitchen and Maura would have quizzed him.

‘Have you had your breakfast, Paddy?’ He would lie, to save his mother from the shame, but Maura could always tell when Paddy was lying. ‘Paddy, sit down at the table, now,’ Maura would say and moments later a bowl of pobs would be set before him, or a slice of bread, soft and warm with beef dripping.

‘Jeez, Harry, your mam has the sight all right!’ he would say as soon as they left the house and slammed the backyard gate behind them. ‘She could see that I was dying for the bread and dripping.’

This morning, with his belly empty, his eyes prickled as he thought about Kitty. Her funeral had had a profound effect on him. It was the first time he had ever peeped through the upstairs window to watch one. The children on the streets were usually confined to the back bedroom when a funeral was taking place, while the adults dragged their chairs out into the street as the cortege passed by. On the day of Kitty’s funeral, the men had marched back up the dockers’ steps and the klaxon had rung out in respect. The women had thrown buckets of water at the horses’ hooves and the praying and chanting of the Hail Marys had risen up to the window where he knelt on floorboards, his face just above the sill. He was afraid, his mouth dry, and he wondered was that because he was the only person who saw what he had seen: Kitty, standing in the middle of the cobbles at the end of the street, looking down on her own funeral.

Did she see Maura, half-falling from her chair onto the ground? Did she hear her wailing and the gasp of everyone as Tommy collapsed and Jerry and Seamus and Eugene hauled him up onto his feet? Did she see the rain that fell from the skies and blessed the mourners? And when she smiled up at him, had she really seen him too?