‘He has the golden child,’ I say petulantly – and I’m immediately annoyed at my childishness. ‘Did you know she has a baby now?’

My mother nods. ‘I do. And I know as well as you, Ciara, that wee girl doesn’t do well under pressure. It would be cruel to leave her to manage all this on her own.’

‘It’s not as easy as all that, Mammy,’ I tell her. ‘I have my own pressures, too. Do you think work will be okay with me announcing I’m taking reams of time off to care for an estranged parent?’

She sniffs, shakes her head. ‘You practically run the place for them, Ciara. You’re owed time off. Take it.’

‘That’s the problem,’ I tell her. ‘I do practically run the place. They need me there.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ she says, in full flow now. ‘It’s only an art gallery. It’s not like you’re CEO of a major company or a brain surgeon or something.’

I bristle. It may not seem like much to my mother, but running the small, independent gallery is my passion. Has been for years. But now’s not the time to argue with her about the importance of the arts. Nor is it the time to tell her that yes, I may well be owed time off, but I’ve things I’d much rather be doing than spending that precious time off with a man who I can’t stand to be near.

‘All I’m saying is, he’s your father. He needs you. You need to be the bigger person here.’ My mother cuts through my thoughts, neither listening to nor understanding what I’ve been saying.

I carry a tray laden with a bowl of chicken soup from a tin, a slice of wheaten bread, a glass of milk and an apple. Mammy has already expressed her disappointment to me over the phone that I didn’t make the soup from scratch. I’d rolled my eyes so hard I’d given myself a headache. Was it not enough for her that I’d booked a few days off work after all, leaving a nervous assistant to oversee the installation of a new exhibition?

‘He’s lucky he’s getting anything,’ I said down the line to Stella, my phone on speaker as I heated the soup and took a spoon from the drawer.

‘You know your mum. Always a little bit extra,’ Stella said, trying to lift my mood. ‘It’s obvious she’s never tasted your soup before!’

‘I make a lovely soup,’ I told her. ‘Just not for estranged family members.’

‘So I take it you won’t be sharing your lunch with Heidi, then?’

‘She’s out,’ I’d told her.

She’d scarpered out of the door with that baby of hers in a buggy almost as soon as my foot had crossed the threshold.

‘Can’t say that I blame her,’ Stella said, who’d said the previous day there was something about the house that gave her the creeps.

‘It’s a feeling,’ she’d said when I pushed her to explain further. ‘It’s hard to put into words, but that house feels sad. Like bad things happen there.’