She looked into his broad, honest face and felt a wave of love wash over her. Pa Brunos was a good man, a basically honest and kind individual. How had he sired Georgio and Stephen? Stephen especially. Mary was all right, even if she was a bit of a snob, Nuala was a mouthy bitch, but she was a good girl all the same. Even Mario, the apple of her eye and as queer as a two-bob clock, was all right in his own way. Patrick was as honest and boring as the day was long, so where did they get Stephen and Georgio?

‘Come on, Maeve, we’ve been together too long for a charade like this to continue. There’s something worrying you. Tell me, woman. Tell me what it is.’

‘Oh, it’s everything. Georgio is in prison, Stephen is getting me down. I don’t trust the bugger. Then those bloody big galoots the other week, trying to put the frighteners on us, all over fecking Georgio again. And I’m worried about Donna. She went to Scotland that time. Now I find out off Dolly that she’s pissed off on holiday! Holiday, if you don’t mind. Her husband’s doing eighteen Christing years and she’s off on her hols while we haven’t even the money to put a bit of paper on the walls in here. That’s what’s making me down, Pa. Just that. Oh, and the fact that Stephen is a whoremaster, Georgio is not as white as he likes everyone to think, and Nuala is still seeing that fecking villain of hers. It seems we brought the lot of them up wrong.’

Pa put a thick muscled arm across her shoulders.

‘We brought them up, but they’re adults now. They make up their own minds. We can only pick up the pieces and help them when it goes wrong. This ain’t like you, my fiery little Irishwoman! Where’s the fighter gone, the woman who could take on the world, eh?’ He was smiling at her, trying to cheer her up, she knew that. She appreciated the effort he was making but nothing could cheer her. Nothing.

She answered him in a flat voice. ‘She got old Pa. As old as the hills.’

Mario and Pa watched her walk from the restaurant, her back stooped, her feet barely leaving the floor. She looked defeated.

Pa stared at Mario, tears gleaming in his eyes. He shook his head slowly.

‘She’ll get over it, Pa.’

He wiped a tear from his eye. ‘Will she? Will any of us?’

Mario didn’t answer, because he didn’t know what to say. Instead he followed his mother up into the flat. Maeve was sipping a cup of tea and smoking a cigarette.

‘Where’s Donna gone on holiday then?’

Maeve lifted her shoulders and shook her head.