“Let me have a go. You can tell me where I’m going wrong.”

Ma shot me a suspicious look, but that offer was too good to pass up. “Might as well make yourself useful, I suppose. You’ll have a cup of tea.”

It wasn’t a question. I pulled up a chair and got started on the cutlery, while Ma bustled in cupboards. The conversation I wanted would have worked best as a confidential mother-and-daughter chat; since I didn’t have the equipment for that, a little joint housework would at least steer us towards the right vibe. If she hadn’t been doing the silver, I would have found something else to clean.

Ma said, by way of an opening salvo, “You went off very sudden, Monday night.”

“I had to go. How’ve you been getting on?”

“How d’you expect? If you wanted to know, you’d have been here.”

“I can’t imagine what this has been like for you,” I said, which may be part of the formula but was probably true. “Is there anything I can do?”

She threw tea bags into the pot. “We’re grand, thanks very much. The neighbors’ve been great: brought us enough dinners for a fortnight, and Marie Dwyer’s letting me keep them in her chest freezer. We’ve lived without your help this long, we’ll survive a bit longer.”

“I know, Mammy. If you think of anything, though, you just let me know. OK? Anything at all.”

Ma spun round and pointed the teapot at me. “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can get a hold of your friend, him, what’s-his-name with the jaw, and you can tell him to send your brother home. I can’t get onto the funeral home about the arrangements, I can’t go to Father Vincent about the Mass, I can’t tell anyone when I’ll be burying my own son, because some young fella with a face like Popeye on him won’t tell me when he’ll be releasing the body—that’s what he called it. The brass neck of him. Like our Kevin’s his property.”

“I know,” I said. “And I promise you I’ll do my best. But he’s not trying to make your life any more difficult. He’s just doing his job, as fast as he can.”

“His job’s his problem, not mine. If he keeps us waiting any longer it’ll have to be a closed casket. Did you think of that?”

I could have told her the casket would probably have to be closed anyway, but we had already taken this line of conversation about as far as I felt like going. I said, “I hear you’ve met Holly.”