She tucked her hair behind her ears and watched the bluebottle crawl across the face of the mirror on the chest of drawers. Comfort was all that mattered now. To find among the vials and bottles something useful, something to match Alice’s suffering without making her nauseous or terrifying her with hallucinations. What else? Light a candle for her? Say a prayer? She was out of practice. Hail Mary and all that. She hadn’t prayed since she was a girl in Derry, when the whole family used to kneel in the front room at the sound of the angelus bell on the television, and her father would recite the rosary. That was all behind her now, like the sea light and the banter and the checkpoints. She had a Buddha at home, one of those hollow brass ones, part household god, part paperweight, and sometimes she put flowers next to it, though she didn’t know much about Buddhism except it seemed a kind sort of religion, less bullying than most. What she did know about was nutrition, care planning, morbidity. Whatever it was you learned about the psychologies of grief and courage sitting through the last hours of forty, fifty people. But what it all actually meant (the slow destruction of a woman like Alice Valentine) she had no idea. She was twenty-seven, for Christ’s sake. She lived on her own in a small rented flat she didn’t much like, and two or three times a week she took Temazepam to stop the dead visiting her in her sleep.

Kirsty came up to help with the dressing (the young women liked each other and worked well together), and though there was very little from among her clothes that Alice could still wear, they found a summer frock of blue-and-white cotton, and a woollen shawl, cream-coloured, to wrap about her shoulders. As they dressed her, gently rolling her between their hands, Alice dozed and muttered, and on waking seemed surprised to find herself transformed, her hair brushed out, the big white trainers on her feet. Kirsty kissed her cheek and ran downstairs to call for Larry.

‘You don’t have to go out, Alice,’ said Una. ‘Not if you’d rather stay up here.’

‘Out?’ said Alice, her eyes widening. ‘Where?’

‘Into the garden. For the party.’

Alice nodded. ‘Who’s in charge?’ she asked.

‘Well. Would you like Alec and Larry to be in charge?’ ‘Write,’ said Alice, holding out a hand.

Una took the felt-tip she used for her notes, tried it first on her own skin, and then wrote across Alice’s palm: Alec and Larry in charge.

‘How’s that?’ she asked.

Larry carried his mother down the stairs and settled her into the wheelchair at the bottom, lifting her feet on to the hinged rests, then steering her through the living room into the kitchen.