It’s on the kitchen table and the smell makes me feel sick. I drag a chair over to the worktop and use it to stand on to reach the top cupboard. My hand pats the tins and packets until I find what I’m looking for. Pink wafers, my favourite. I stuff four in my pocket and shove the torn packet to the back behind the baked beans and tuna chunks.

Maureen Connolly is in the sitting room, murmuring to my father. I listen for a while, my ear pressed to the door, the cloudy biscuits melting on my tongue, and when the murmuring stops for longer than a minute, I open it without knocking.

My father jumps as if I’ve spilled hot tea on him. Maureen Connolly’s face is flushed and there’s a pinkish chafing around her mouth and chin. There’s a feeling of something in the air, but I don’t know what it is.

‘Shouldn’t you be back at the pub by now?’ I plant my hands on my hips.

Maureen Connolly looks at my father. My father looks at the carpet. He scratches his beard.

‘Don’t be rude,’ he mutters.

‘I’m on my break, love.’ Maureen Connolly tries on a smile. ‘I’ve popped your dinner down.’

‘Doesn’t your husband wonder where you are?’

To my surprise, Maureen Connolly throws back her head and laughs, a rough, earthy sound. ‘I haven’t got a husband, love, and thank God for that.’

This news makes me feel anxious, although I’m not sure why.

‘Look, why don’t you go out and play?’ My father sounds hopeful, but I disappoint him by shaking my head. He burrows through his pockets and produces a fifty-pence coin, twirling it between his fingers like a magician. ‘What about some sweets?’

I hesitate, briefly tempted.

But I don’t want to leave my father and Maureen Connolly alone.

‘No thanks,’ I say.

We stand there, the three of us, on that Saturday morning with the promise of spring lighting the sky and my mother sleeping in the next room, skin as dry as sawdust.

‘Brinley . . .’ There’s a warning in my father’s voice that I know I should heed, but instead I cross the room and grab hold of his arm, like I’m five instead of twelve. He tries to shake me off, his tone hemmed with affection, but mostly impatience. ‘Get off, you’re too heavy for this now.’

But I don’t let go. I want his attention. On me. On my mother. On anything but Maureen Connolly. ‘Can we go to the park?’ I tug harder. ‘Or we could feed the horses. No, wait, what about the library? I need to get some books for my homework.’

He prises open my fingers, rougher than he usually is. ‘No,’ he says, ‘I can’t leave your mother.’