Her heart bothered her sometimes. The twins were in her mind tonight. She had thought Daniel getting put away for so long would have made her ill, but instead it gave her a feeling of peace.

He had pushed his luck and his violent streak too far. He had had to pay the price. Thirty years. She would likely be dead by the time he got out.

Tommy turned over in his sleep and she felt his arm creep around her waist, holding her gently. Her husband. It still seemed strange to call him that. He snuffled into the pillows, sounding ridiculous and so normal she felt the sting of tears once more.

‘Oh, Eileen,’ she whispered into the darkness. ‘You gave me the gift of your children, and I tried to do the best I could by them. I really tried.’

She saw Henry Dumas in her mind’s eye, with his ridiculous large moustaches. Through him she had been given the most important thing in her life: her son. And later Henry had inadvertently brought them together again, brought them close. This thought pleased her more than anything because she liked to think that somewhere Henry Dumas was spinning in his grave, distraught with the knowledge the two of them had come together again through his folly.

‘Henry, you bastard,’ she whispered once more into the blackness of her bedroom, ‘I bested you in the end. You were the cause of every unhappiness that befell me and mine, but I am the victor. With all my troubles the victor.’

With that she closed her eyes and thought of the twins as boys, her boys. How she would always think of them.

Boysie’s daughter Deidre, born fatherless and in a blaze of publicity, was asleep in the next room.

Suzy was quite happy for her to stay with Briony and Tommy at weekends. It was her way of trying to make amends for the way she’d acted after Boysie’s death. Briony put up with Suzy so she could see the child.

A new generation was growing. Faithey and Deidre were both fatherless, both cursed with mothers who were no good at all. It seemed that they needed Briony and Bernadette and even Kerry to look out for them.

Molly wouldn’t last much longer, Boysie’s death and Daniel’s prison sentence had finished her. She had lost the will to live now, had become old overnight, really old and decrepit. Briony snuggled against Tommy’s back.

Age was creeping up on them all, but while they had the children they had life and a reason for living.