I walk into the ticket sales office, my purse held aloft like a prize.

Once I am out of Iris’s line of vision, I take out my mobile. There’s a missed call from Brendan. I dial his number. The girls are always at me to program people’s numbers into my phone, but I prefer doing it this way. It gives me time to gather my thoughts. Work out what I’m going to say.

Brendan answers the phone immediately, as if he’s been sitting beside it, waiting for it to ring.

“Terry?” he says. “Where are you?”

The small speech I had prepared deserts me. It wasn’t a speech exactly, just, you know, a collection of words. Sentences. An explanation. I had the words “unforeseen circumstances” in there somewhere. I’m pretty sure I did. Now there’s nothing. Just a blank space in my head where the small speech had been.

“I’m in Holyhead,” I say.

“Holyhead?” As if he’s never heard of it.

“Yes. The ferry port in Wales.”

“What the hell are you doing there?” His use of the word “hell” jolts me. We don’t use words like that. And I can’t remember the last time he raised his voice. Not even at the telly when Dublin played in the final. In fact, I can’t remember the last time we argued, me and Brendan. It’s been ages. Years, I’d say.

“Well, Iris is talking about going to a concert.” This seems so...preposterous all of a sudden.

“A concert?” Brendan’s tone is halting, as though he’s positive he’s misheard.

“Jason Donovan,” I offer, just to get it out of the way. “He was in that soap opera, remember? Neighbours.”

“What in the name of God does Jason Donovan have to do with anything?”

“Well, nothing really. Only, Iris wants to go to his concert. It’s on in the Hippodrome tonight. That’s in London. You probably already know that.”

Down the line, I hear Brendan’s breath being sucked into his lungs, held there, released in a long thin line through the small circle that he will have made of his mouth. The phone feels hot and slippery in my hands. When he speaks, his voice is conversational. “I thought Iris was anxious to do away with herself?”

I say nothing. I’m afraid to say anything because of how angry I suddenly am. I am boiling with rage. Seething. I feel like if I breathed out through my nose, plumes of smoke would issue from my nostrils, that’s how angry I feel. It’s a strange sensation. It is huge. Bigger than me.

“Terry? Are you there?” Brendan says.

“Yes,” I say. The word sounds strangled, as if someone is pressing their hands around my neck.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“When are you coming home, for starters?”

“I’m not sure.”

I hear Brendan shift the receiver from one hand to the other. “Listen, Terry, you need to get back here. ASAP.”

“Why? Has something happened? Are the girls okay?”

“Of course they’re okay. Why the hell wouldn’t they be okay?”