“There was nothing wrong with that gingerbread,” Ma snapped. “If you’re after getting fat, Gavin Keogh, it’s not my cooking that done it.” Gav mumbled something and shot Jackie an agonized look. He was being tactful, in a large hairy way: trying to give us some family togetherness time, at this difficult moment. Carmel bundled the kids into coats and scarves and woolly hats—Holly went right into the lineup between Donna and Ashley, like she was one of Carmel’s own—and off they went. I watched from the front-room window as the gaggle of them headed down the street. Holly, arm-linked with Donna so tight they looked like Siamese twins, didn’t look up to wave.

Family time didn’t work out quite the way Gav had planned: we all slumped in front of the telly, not talking, until Ma recovered from the ornament blitzkrieg and dragged Carmel into the kitchen to do things with baked goods and plastic wrap. I said quietly to Jackie, before she could get nabbed, “Come for a smoke.”

She gave me a wary look, like a kid who knows she’s earned a clatter when her ma gets her alone. I said, “Take it like a woman, babe. The sooner you get it over with . . .”

Outside it was cold and clear and still, the sky over the rooftops just deepening from thin blue-white to lilac. Jackie thumped down in her spot at the bottom of the steps, in a tangle of long legs and purple patent-leather boots, and held out a hand. “Give us a smoke, before you start giving out. Gav’s after taking ours with him.”

“So tell me,” I said pleasantly, once I had lit her smoke and one for myself. “What the fuck were you and Olivia thinking?”

Jackie’s chin was arranged all ready for an argument, and for a disturbing second she was the spitting image of Holly. “I thought it’d be great for Holly to get to know this lot. I’d say Olivia thought the same. And we weren’t wrong there, were we? Did you see her with Donna?”

“Yeah, I did. They’re cute together. I also saw her bleeding devastated over Kevin. Crying so hard she could barely breathe. That was less cute.”

Jackie watched the curls of smoke from her cigarette spread out over the steps. She said, “So are all of us in bits. Ashley is as well, and she’s only six. That’s life, sure. You were worried Holly wasn’t getting enough real stuff, were you not? I’d say this is as real as it gets.”