Ray had expanded the businesses over the years and they now had quite a high standard of living. She loved that they had their own pool and enough land to give them privacy. The boys went to a Catholic school that wasn’t cheap, but it seemed to keep them out of trouble. As Ray said, you can’t fuck with the Jesuits, they were hard bastards. And they were that, all right. Ray prided himself on being a good Catholic and he had insisted that the boys had a proper education. It was paying off though – the boys were worn out with all the sport and they genuinely seemed to like their teachers – even if they did wear what Liam referred to as ‘dresses’. They were changing and that pleased her. They had a future now. Sharon had never been happier and it showed.

As Ray left with the boys to drop them off at school, she made herself a pot of tea and sat in her large, sunny kitchen contentedly. Life just didn’t get better than this. Not that she never argued with Ray. She could be stubborn, but they were the normal arguments and petty squabbles of family life: where to go on holiday, what they would do at Christmas. Ray always wanted them to go to his mother’s but now it was better for her to come to them. Old Annie Donovan loved coming to her son’s beautiful home. Sharon adored her. She was a wonderful woman. When Sharon had asked her where Ray got his dark good looks she had laughed delightedly and said, with searing honesty, ‘His father was a Turk. He left one day and he took my heart and most of my electrical equipment with him!’

Sharon had laughed with her then, but she could see the woman had genuinely loved the man, whoever he was. Annie got on well with her, and they were a happy family. Sharon’s mother thought the sun shone out of Ray’s backside and her dad thought the world of him too. So, despite all she had had to contend with, life had taken a turn for the better and she thanked God every day for that.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Five