The joke was that Noreen, his ex-wife, had never tried to stop his affairs, so why the hell had he dumped her?

He picked up the telephone again and dialled her number.

The phone was answered by his youngest daughter, Rosaleen.

‘Hello, Daddy!’ He heard her put the phone on the table with a clunk and call to her mother.

‘Mommy, Mommy, Daddy’s on the phone!’

O’Grady tried to ignore the sound of surprise in the child’s voice.

Noreen’s gently New England twang came on the line. Noreen had class, he admitted that to himself. He should never have divorced her.

‘Hello, Shaun, this is a surprise.’

As he began to answer, the woman came out of the bedroom. She still had on the negligee and her impossibly long brown legs were visible through it. She pushed back thick black hair and lit a cigarette with natural grace.

O’Grady watched her, fascinated, then spoke into the phone. ‘I’m coming up at the weekend to see the children. OK?’

‘Fine. Let me know when you’ll be picking them up and I’ll make sure they’re ready. They do miss you, you know.’

‘I’ll call back with the details, Noreen.’

‘Fine.’

She put the phone down.

He immediately began dialling again, his eyes on the woman’s buttocks, shimmering beneath the thin silk. He smiled at her and she half smiled back, retreating once more into the bedroom.

‘Hello, Duane? Get yourself over here now, I have a job for you.’

He put down the phone and stubbed out his cigarette. He could hear Ricky Ricardo’s laugh and guessed that the programme was coming to an end.

Tasha loved the old programmes: I Love Lucy, The Three Stooges. He had bought her the Marx Brothers collection. She was twenty-five.

How old was Noreen now? Thirty-eight? Thirty-nine?

He would see more of the girls, he was determined on that. Christ, what Pat had told him made you think! Who said the screwballs were only in America.

George was the centre of attention and loving every second of it. Edith looked fantastic and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her hair was perfectly coiffeured. He knew it must be dyed, but it was dyed a natural colour and it suited her. She did not look like a woman in her fifties. Joss, on the other hand, looked every bit of his sixty-five years. His face was deep brown and leathery. Both of them had American twangs which George found exciting and attractive.

Edith was talking nineteen to the dozen.