Dolly pursed her lips and blew out the air with an unladylike snort. ‘Have you seen who’s over there?’ she said viciously.

Donna nodded wearily. ‘Leave it, Dolly love,’ she said. ‘Please, just leave it.’

‘Look at her standing there, bold as brass, all tits, teeth and fucking tan!’

Carol’s voice was envious and Donna giggled despite herself. ‘Funny how it doesn’t hurt any more. All I feel is relieved it’s all over.’

As they climbed into the limousine, Donna glanced once more at Vida, standing alone with the child beside her. Her long, streaked hair was backcombed to its full height and her face was covered in make-up. She looked down, unable to meet Donna’s eyes. As they drove past, Donna searched the child’s face for any sign of his father there. He was Georgio’s child all right; he even had the long thick eyelashes more suited to a girl than a boy.

Then closing her mind on the scene, Donna pushed the woman and the child from her mind.

It was time to move on.

For all of them.

Maeve sat on her bed. She could hear the sounds of the family coming through the thin walls. She looked down at the photographs in her hands and felt the sting of tears again. Georgio looking at the camera with his huge dark eyes, Stephen making his First Holy Communion, looking serious and proud all at the same time. His face, like Georgio’s, full of childish innocence.

Then she thought of the child at the cemetery, Georgio’s child, her flesh and blood . . . and she knew exactly what she had to do. The child was the living image of him.

She stood up unsteadily and went back to the wake.

A lot of the relatives from Ireland had flown over, but the family from Rhodes had not bothered. Only Pa’s younger sister Patrina had come, and she had travelled down from Manchester where she lived with her eldest daughter, having been widowed two years previously.

Patrina took her arm and squeezed it.

‘What a day. Who would have thought any of us would be burying our children? It’s the wrong order. They should be burying us.’

Maeve pulled away from her and walked over to where Donna sat sipping whisky and nibbling a ham sandwich.

‘Hello, darlin’.’

Donna looked into the strained, tired face of her mother-in-law. ‘Hello, Maeve,’ she said tenderly.

Opening her arms wide, Maeve pulled Donna into them and the two women cried together publicly. The rest of the family stood back watching, pleased at this turn of events. It reinforced in all their minds that Georgio couldn’t have been all bad to have held the love of these two women.