I’ve tried – I’m still trying – to rally the troops, so to speak, to get help. I’ve spoken to some of Joe’s friends. Asked them if they could maybe take a shift on, a morning or afternoon, or an hour even of looking after him.

They’ve mostly been too busy. They work. Or they mind their grandkids. Or they have plans but they’ll ‘see what they can do’ and disappear off the radar.

With every ‘Sorry, I’d love to but can’t,’ I feel myself crumble a little.

This house has started to make me itch. I only have to get to the bottom of the drive and I can feel my skin prickle. Everything here is heavy and there are shadows everywhere.

We have, at least, managed to secure a care package for Joe. From next week, carers will visit for fifteen minutes each morning and fifteen minutes each evening to help with personal hygiene and the like. It’s not much, but it’s something, and I cling to it.

So far Alex has been on hand to help Joe shave every second day. We’ve put a stool in the bathroom, where he can sit while he brushes his teeth, and each morning I bring a basin of warm water, soap and fresh towels to Joe’s room and he washes himself as best he can.

He needs a shower. I know that. But he’ll have to wait for that.

Ciara has visited twice. Stayed for a few hours. Seemed to be in the foulest of all moods while she was here. It doesn’t help with the atmosphere, so I tend to avoid her. Use the time she’s here to get outside and breathe in some fresh air. I walk the length of the quay along the river over and over again with Lily in her pram, waiting for the peace and calm to wash over me that’s supposed to come with getting out and about. I’m still waiting.

‘Look,’ Dr Sweeney says as he sips tea from a good china cup, the kind kept for company. ‘He’s feeling a bit down, you know. That could be what’s hindering his recovery in and of itself. I know the prognosis isn’t good, but we need to do what we can to get him to make the most of what time he has left.’

I’d nodded, because it was expected. But ‘we’ all know that ‘we’ means ‘me’.

‘He says he gets panicky at night, in case he’s unwell and there’s no one here to help him,’ Dr Sweeney, who has been our family doctor for as long as I can remember, says.

‘There’s always someone here ’til gone eight,’ I say defensively. ‘And then I’m here before nine in the morning again. He has a phone. He can call if he needs me.’

I want to add that I’m doing as much as I can. I don’t actually want to do any of it. I’d spent the bare minimum of time with him before this illness and I’d very much like it if it was still that way. But of course, I keep quiet.