Josephine busied herself lighting a cigarette, even though she knew that Michael hated her smoking. She didn’t know how to react to her husband’s words. Michael was always so sure of everything, but she wasn’t as sure as he was about her daughter. She leant forward in her chair and, looking directly at her husband, she said seriously, ‘Do you know what I think, Michael? I think the night the Cornels came here ruined her. It was such a big trauma for all of us, but she never seemed to get over it, did she? She just went off the rails afterwards, and then with the baby on top of everything else, it was all too much for her. She was a mother at sixteen years old, that’s a really big event for anyone, Michael, let alone a young girl like Jessie.’

Michael laughed sarcastically. He had no intention of making excuses for his daughter. She was the one who had got herself pregnant, and it wasn’t even as if she had known who the culprit was. It could have been anyone. Josephine’s problems had been made worse by her daughter’s actions, and young Jessie was the main reason that Josephine couldn’t bring herself to leave her home any more. There was no way he was going to sit here tonight and pretend anything different. He had seen first-hand the toll his daughter’s lifestyle had had on his wife. Tonight he wasn’t in the mood to overlook it.