The landlord had finally put in a carpet, a flowery green and pink thing. The room still smelled of toast, damp and furniture polish, with a faint dirty undercurrent I couldn’t place. There was a tray full of doilies and digestive biscuits on the table. My da and Kevin were in the armchairs; my ma was on the sofa, with Carmel and Jackie on either side, like a war leader showing off two prize prisoners.

My ma is your classic Dublin mammy: five foot nothing of curler-haired, barrel-shaped don’t-mess-with-this, fueled by an endless supply of disapproval. The prodigal son’s welcome went like this:

“Francis,” Ma said. She eased back into the sofa, folded her arms where her waist would have been and eyed me up and down. “Could you not be bothered putting on a decent shirt, even?”

I said, “Howya, Ma.”

“Mammy, not Ma. The state of you. The neighbors’ll think I raised a homeless.”

Somewhere along the way I swapped the army parka for a brown leather jacket, but apart from that I still have much the same fashion sense I left home with. If I’d worn a suit, she would have given me hassle for having notions of myself. With my ma you don’t expect to win. “Jackie sounded like it was urgent,” I said. “Howya, Da.”

Da was looking better than I’d expected. Back in the day, I was the one who took after him—same thick brown hair, same rough-edged features—but the resemblance had faded a lot along the way, which was nice. He was starting to turn into an old fella—white hair, trousers up above his ankles—but he still had enough muscle that you’d think twice before taking him on. He looked stone cold sober, although with him you never could tell till it was too late. “Nice of you to honor us,” he said. His voice was deeper and hoarser; too many Camels. “You’ve still got a neck like a jockey’s bollix.”

“So they keep telling me. Howya, Carmel. Kev. Shay.”

Shay didn’t bother to answer. “Francis,” Kevin said. He was staring at me like I was a ghost. He’d turned into a big guy, fair and solid and good-looking; bigger than me. “Jaysus.”

“Language,” Ma snapped.

“You’re looking very well,” Carmel informed me, predictably. If the Risen Lord appeared to Carmel one morning, she’d tell him he was looking very well. Her arse was in fact pretty high-impact, and she had developed a genteel meet-my-sinuses accent that didn’t surprise me one bit. Things around here were more like they used to be than they ever had been. “Thanks very much,” I said. “So are you.”