Molly watched with contempt. So that whore’s time was on, was it? Well she hoped she had a dead child. That would make Molly’s Christmas.

Briony extricated herself from Rosalee’s arms and said, ‘She wants you, Mum.’

Molly carried on fiddling with the tree.

‘Oh, she does, does she? Well, she’ll have to know what it’s like to want then, won’t she?’

Briony stood up, staring at her mother with eyes narrowed dangerously. Bernadette closed her eyes. Marcus, on the other hand, watched in fascination as Briony went to her mother and said: ‘I don’t think you realise, Mum, but you haven’t got any say in it. You’re coming if I have to drag you there myself.’

Molly looked down at her tiny daughter and smiled grimly. ‘I’d like to see you try, madam.’

Briony lifted her arm and Bernadette jumped from her seat. Pulling Briony away, she said, ‘Come on, Mum. How long can you keep all this up? It’s Christmas. Poor Kerry’s got enough on her plate as it is. Try and have a bit of Christian spirit, you’re always going on about it.’

Molly sneered at her daughters.

‘That bitch of hell can go and die for all I care, that child is a stain on the earth. It’s ... it’s an abomination! She wants me — me! — to go to her in her labour. Well, she can want all she likes, the whore. I couldn’t care if Christ himself or the angel Gabriel appeared in me kitchen this second, I still wouldn’t go.’

‘You’re a vicious old cow, Mother. Come on, Bernie, help me get Rosalee’s coat on.’

Molly stood in front of Rosalee and shouted, ‘She goes nowhere.’

Briony laughed. ‘Oh yes she does, because this house is still in my name. I put you down as the lodger, Mother. I handed it to you only as a lodger. You won’t own it unless I die before you. It was my way of keeping Abel’s hands off it. So if I’m going to put you out - which I fully intend to, legally mind - then Rosalee is homeless, isn’t she? I don’t suppose they’d welcome her and all next-door. Also, the allowance stops so you’ll have to live off Abel who gets a good wedge from me, by the way, for doing fuck all! Or you’ll have to get yourself a job.’

Molly’s face paled.

‘You wouldn’t do that to me? You wouldn’t use your money to force my hand, surely?’