She laughed scornfully. ‘You were always the man with the words. Even as a child you could talk the hind leg off the table. Well, let’s clear the air here once and for all. Every time I think of what you’re doing I feel as sick as a priest at a Jewish wedding. You and Georgio broke me heart between you, and now I’ve had it up to here.’ She poked herself in the forehead to emphasise her point. ‘When I think of how you spoke about Donna, you two-faced bastard of hell, I could cut the legs from under ye.’

‘I think I’d better go.’

Nuala pulled on her brother’s arm, shocked to the core at all her mother had said.

‘Oh, let him go, Nuala, I’m sick of the sight of him.’

Nuala watched her brother walk from the room and Maeve ran to the doorway and called down the stairs to where Stephen was opening the front door.

‘And tell that fat bitch you’re knocking off it’s a sin against God. She’s old enough to be your mother!’

Nuala stood with her fingers across her lips at her mother’s parting words. Maeve pushed past her daughter and stormed back into the tiny front room.

‘The cheek of that one! I saw him with me own eyes, kissing and pawing at an old biddy, be Christ. I could have ripped the head off the two of them. What have I bred, Nuala girl? One away till Judgment Day and the other a granny lover. If it wasn’t so sad it’d be hilarious.’

‘Oh, Mum!’

‘Jaysus and Mary, is that all you learnt at that convent? “Oh, Mam!” I only told him the truth, it’s about time someone did.’

She lowered herself on to the old settee which groaned under her weight.

‘This room used to be full of children. I felt blessed because my seven kids were eating well, were healthy. I used to thank God every night on me knees for it all. Now I ask Him what happened? What went wrong? Mario is as queer as a nine-bob note, Georgio’s away for eighteen Christing years, and Stephen . . . clever, handsome Stephen is running women, and living the life of Riley on the proceeds. Only you, Mary and Patrick seem half-normal, and Mary is so boring you’d fall asleep on the phone to her. All her talk about the neighbours, and what will people think, and all the rest of it. Jaysus, she’s another one!’

Nuala shook her head in wonderment. In all her life she had never heard her mother talk as she was now.

‘Oh, Mum.’

Maeve lit herself a Number Six and said through clenched teeth. ‘If you “Oh, Mam” me once more, I’ll rip every hair out of your fecking head, and trample it into the carpet!’