‘I don’t know. Dolly said she hadn’t told her, but she knows all right. There’s not much slips past that nosy old bitch.’

Mario sat at the small kitchen table and poured himself out a cup of tea.

‘You know, Mario, it’s funny, but I was just thinking about you all, when you were kids. I tried to decide if there was any way I could have foreseen how you’d all turn out.’

‘Mum, you brought us up, but as me dad says, we’re grown now and we make our own decisions, lead our own lives. It’s nothing to do with you or Pa. Like me, for instance, I’m sorry that I can’t like girls.’ He smiled gently. ‘I’ll rephrase that, shall I? I do like girls, but only as friends.

‘I know my being gay breaks your heart and I’m sorry, Mum. Sorry to the core of me, but I am what I am. Do you know, there’s married men who come to a club I go to. They have lived a lie for years. There’s women out there with husbands, having no idea that their men are gay. I am your son, Mum, but I am what I am. I’m not going to make excuses for myself and I certainly don’t want you to make them for me. If only I had done this, or if only I had done that . . . All that talk is shite, as you would say. I am what I am and Georgio is what he is because it’s the paths we chose.’

‘And what about Stephen?’

Mario took a deep breath before he answered her.

‘Stephen? Well, while we’re being so honest I’ll tell you what I think about him, shall I? I think that out of all of us, he’s the one you should be worrying about because he’s bad, Mum, rotten bad. Inside and out.’

Maeve looked into Mario’s handsome face and for the first time in months his sexual preferences didn’t cloud her judgement of him. Instead she saw him as another woman or man might see him: good-looking, accomplished, intelligent.

She grabbed his hand and held it tightly between her own. ‘You’re right - he is bad. Putrid, rotten.’ She closed her eyes for a second, to pull herself together. Then she said brightly, ‘But you know, you’re a son a woman could be proud of. Even if you are a nancy boy!’

It was said in jest and Mario smiled widely at his mother, the biggest love of his life.

‘I’m sorry, Mum. Truly I am.’

Maeve stroked his cheek with a workworn finger. ‘Don’t be, Mario. You do what you feel you must. Whatever you want to do, I’ll back you to the hilt.’