Ron managed to stop her from sliding under the table and gathered her in his arms. ‘I’ll be taking her upstairs to sleep it off,’ he said to Peggy who was desperately trying not to laugh.

‘I’ll come up with you to make sure you don’t drop her,’ said Rosie as he swayed on his feet and Cordelia’s hat finally fell off. ‘By the looks of you, Ronan Reilly, you’re not fit to be in charge of a knife and fork, let alone an old lady.’

‘Ach, woman, it takes more than a few beers to make me incapable of carrying Cordelia. She weighs nothing, and I’ve been doing it for years.’ With that, he weaved his way out of the bar and very carefully carried Cordelia up the stairs, Rosie following nervously at his heels with the hat.

As the afternoon wore on and the noise grew in tandem with the emptying of bottles, Peggy joined in with the sing-song and thought wistfully of Fran and Ivy. It didn’t feel right not having Fran here to play her violin and get them all dancing, and poor little Ivy would have loved to be a part of all this instead of being down in Salisbury.

Peggy tuned out of the singing, wondering how both girls were getting on, and why Ivy had delayed bringing her young siblings back to Beach View – but then the children had probably become settled down there, and would find it an awful wrench to be taken away after all those years.

She watched Daisy and Paula dancing along to the raucous singing of ‘Little Brown Jug’. According to Ivy, her little sister had been Daisy’s age when she’d been sent down there, and her brother only two years older, and Peggy was profoundly grateful that she hadn’t sent Daisy away despite the dangers. It had been bad enough seeing her sons leave for Somerset, soon to be followed by her daughter and granddaughter – and look how reluctant they all were to come home. Peggy suspected that Ivy would be having a hard time of it in Salisbury, and her heart went out to her.

Feeling the onset of a headache, Peggy decided she’d make some tea and carefully made her unsteady way upstairs to the kitchen. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she looked in on Cordelia, and finding her snoring happily beneath a blanket on the spare bed, left her to it. She found some aspirins in the bathroom cabinet and swallowed a couple with the hot tea and felt almost instantly refreshed. The noise was still going on downstairs, and the two dogs had clearly beaten a retreat when they discovered there was no food for them and were now sprawled, entwined, along the couch.