“I might, except that plenty of other people won’t, and one of the top theories has me down as the big bad villain. You think I should just ignore that? You’re the one said you wanted me to keep coming here. Have a think about what that means. You want me to spend every Sunday on a street that thinks I’m a killer?”

Jackie moved on the step. She said, “I already told you. That’s just talk. It’ll blow over.”

I said, “Then, if I’m not the bad guy and Kev’s not the bad guy, yous tell me. What happened?”

The silence went on for a long time. We heard them coming before we saw them: kids’ voices twisting together, a quick hushed running murmur, somewhere inside the dazzle of long evening light at the top of the road. They stepped out of that dazzle in a tangle of black silhouettes, the men tall as lampposts, the kids blurring and flickering in and out of each other. Holly’s voice called, “Daddy!” and I raised an arm to wave, even though I couldn’t make out which one she was. Their shadows leaped down the road in front of them and threw mysterious shapes at our feet.

“Now,” Carmel said softly, to herself. She took a breath and ran her fingers under her eyes, making sure nothing was left of her cry. “Now.”

I said, “Next time we get a chance, you’ll have to finish telling me what happened last Sunday.”

Shay said, “And then it got late, Ma and Da and me headed for bed, and Kev and Jackie headed for home.” He threw his cigarette over the railings and stood up. “The end,” he said.

As soon as we all got back into the flat Ma kicked things up a gear, to punish us for leaving her to her own terrifying devices. She was doing ferocious things to vegetables and issuing orders at warp speed: “You, Carmel-Jackie-Carmel-whoever-you-are, get them potatoes started—Shay, put that over there, no, you simpleton, there—Ashley, love, give the table a wipe for your nana—and Francis, you go in and have a word with your da, he’s after getting back into the bed and he wants a bit of company. Go on!” She smacked me across the head with a dish towel, to get me moving.

Holly had been leaning against my side, showing me some painted ceramic thing she had bought in the Christmas Village to give Olivia and explaining in detail how she had met Santa’s elves, but at that she melted neatly away among the cousins, which I felt showed good sense. I considered doing the same thing, but Ma has the ability to keep nagging for so long that it borders on a superpower, and the dishcloth was aimed in my direction again. I got out of her way.