Eileen was as quiet as a church mouse, her face pinched and drawn. She was preparing her dinner, and such was her lassitude, even peeling the carrots was a long-drawn-out operation. She had made a pot of tea and had not opened her mouth since. Molly had talked about all her own doings, until now there was an absolute quiet that hung in the air like a silent cloud.

‘Is everything all right, Eileen? You don’t look yourself, girl.’

Eileen looked at her, her face strained. Molly felt a sinking feeling at the sight. Please don’t let Eileen’s nerves get the better of her now, not when she’d been better for so long. Holy Mary, don’t let her be going off her head again, please.

‘I said, are you feeling all right, Eileen child?’

She nodded.

Molly sighed loudly, wondering what to say.

‘Is everything all right with you and Joshua?’

Eileen cut the carrots up, the scrape of the knife against the wooden chopping board the only sound in room.

‘For the love of Christ, Eileen, will you bloody well answer me?’

Molly’s loud voice made Eileen and Rosalee jump.

Eileen stared at her mother from fearful eyes. Molly noticed that in the week since the wedding her shoulders had acquired the old drooping look of before. Her face seemed to be on her collarbones instead of her neck.

‘What do you want me to say?’

Molly closed her eyes. At least she’d answered, she wasn’t entirely gone.

‘Tell me what’s wrong with you, girl? I’m worried about you. For a woman who’s been married a week, you look suspiciously like one who’s been married forty years, when the novelty’s well and truly worn off! Is it Joshua? Is Joshua not nice like ... You know. Is he doing something to upset you?’

Eileen shook her head, terrified, thinking of the taunts he constantly gave her, the way he asked her to tell him in detail what her seducer did to her, as if this spurred his own sexual appetite on. Telling her he would tell the world about her killing her father, and about Henry Dumas. How the police would dig her father up, and how she’d have to go to court...

‘Is it that fucker of a mother of his then? Has she been at you? Because if she has, you tell me and I’ll wipe the floor with her!’

Eileen shook her head.

Molly gritted her teeth. She’d get to the bottom of this if she had to throttle Eileen with her bare hands.

‘Is it the bed like, the nights, love? Is that it?’

Eileen put her hand to her mouth and nodded furiously and Molly sighed with relief.