‘Is she settled in?’ asks Fin, making conversation. ‘The new house, I mean. I bet she’s a bit lonely. Sophia off travelling, Poppy on her scholarship, the other two staying with her mum so they can finish their courses. And her husband, of course …’

‘I’m sure she won’t be short of company,’ says Roisin, a blade in her voice.

‘What’s this?’ asks Lilah, picking up the scroll wrapped in red.

‘Don’t touch that!’

Lilah, pretending to slap herself on the wrist, does as instructed, and drops the paper back in the tin. An old photo falls out the end. It’s faded, creased – blotchy in places. But it shows the big, earnest face of her father.

‘Is that Daddy?’

Roisin snatches up the picture and scroll and slips one back inside the other. She can’t stand the thought of them seeing any more. Can imagine the looks on their faces if they saw the words written on the creamy paper; the desperate words of a teenager intensely in love and lust with the shy, square-jawed police officer who saved her from the bad men on the day that changed her life.

She feels Fin vacate the space at her side. He flicks on the TV and navigates to the local news. Turns it down to a considerate volume then makes his way to the kitchen. He sits down at the little table, awaiting breakfast. Lilah follows his lead and sets about sorting bowls, plates and cups. It took their father a long time to become comfortable with certain aspects of her culture. He is a dad who wants to do his share. But Roisin has been raised in an environment where the women look after the men. The house sparkles; the food is always sublime. She will barely let her husband lift a finger. She tells him it is his job to provide, and to protect them. It goes against everything that McAvoy stands for. He’s incapable of idleness or indolence; blushes at the very idea of being waited on. But Roisin gets cross whenever he attempts to help around the house, and he finds himself in the bizarre position of not cooking or cleaning lest he upset his partner. Lilah, her mother’s apprentice, is not as keen on the set-up. She has taken to printing out suffragette fliers, depositing emancipation and women’s lib posters at strategic points in the kitchen.

Roisin gathers up her things. Holds the tin like a teddy bear. Hauls herself upright and returns it to the cupboard under the stairs. Curses herself for the thousandth time. Had she put the spare phone in the tin, Aector would never have found it. He wouldn’t have broken her trust by peeking inside something he knows to be private. He’s just not capable of such a betrayal. Instead she tucked the phone into the toe of a little-worn pair of shoes. He didn’t question her on it, but she knew from his face, from the change in the air around him, that something was wrong. She’d longed to tell him. Would have given anything to take his face in her hands; to press his damp forehead against her cheek, and tell him the truth. Instead she had decided upon silence. The silence turned into moodiness; snappiness; to bad dreams and absences. And he tried so damn hard to be helpful, to be strong, to be better. She rebuffed his every advance, shrugging off his caresses, dismissing his soft words as platitudes. Told him she felt smothered. None of it was true. What she felt was afraid. She knew something he did not, and to share it with him would be to forever change the way he looked at her. And she needs his love like air.