Over Christmas, Maisie had introduced a swear jar to encourage her daughter to stop saying her two favourite words, ‘bleedin’’ and ‘shite’, but it simply served to highlight her own bad language. She had tried to change her ways after she was hauled into the school principal’s office to discuss her daughter’s use of the word ‘shitebag’.

‘To be fair, Principal Young, the lad was painting her hair with white Tippex.’

‘That is not the point, Ms Bean.’

‘I respectfully disagree.’

‘Valerie is learning this kind of language somewhere and it’s not in this school. We have strict rules about cursing here.’ Principal Young handed Maisie a list of banned words. She surveyed the list, most of which Maisie uttered on a daily basis. ‘I don’t see “shitebag” here,’ she said, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Principal Young wasn’t amused. ‘Perhaps not, but you do see “shit”, and “shite” is simply “shit” with an e on the end. We have no problem with “bag”.’

Principal Young was being snotty. Maisie tolerated a lot but snottiness really got under her skin. It was her trigger, the thing that switched her gear from amenable to dogmatic. Normally she would have put that middle-class college-educated woman with the posh accent and bad attitude back in her box because Maisie did not react well to being looked down on. However, in this instance, her cheeks had flared red and she’d bitten her lip because the arrogant bitch was right. Valerie had picked up her cursing from herself and her mother, and although Maisie defended her right to express herself as she saw fit, little kids cursing was offputting. In that moment she resolved to set a better example for her children – after all, how hard could it be?

It turned out that it was very hard not to swear when you were a single mother of two and your mother was in the middle stages of dementia, you had a part-time job in a dental surgery during the week and cleaned a factory at weekends. By now the jar was overflowing. Maisie dreaded her next meeting with Principal Young.

When Bridie had still been well, she had often commented that Valerie would be the death of Maisie. ‘I love the bones of her but she’s hard raring, that child,’ she’d say. She’d often smile as she said it, as though the notion pleased her. ‘She’ll come good, though. I see my mother in her – she’d have picked a fight with Jesus on the cross – and when the chips are down, Maisie, that’s when our Valerie will come into her own.’