I nearly said ‘thanks’ but remembered in time. The usual scenario was that I would say ‘Really Have I’ And she’d say ‘No! Nah haaah! You fall for it every time, don’t you You big thick.’

‘Where’s Pollyanna’ asked Helen.

‘Out at the gate, talking to Mrs Hennessy,’ I said.

Margaret was the only one of us who spoke to our neighbours, happy to discuss hip replacements, grand children’s First Communions, the unusually wet weather and the availability of Tayto in Chicago.

Then Paul pushed into the hall, loaded down with bags.

‘Oh Christ, no,’ said Helen, still at the top of the stairs. ‘No one said you were coming. How long are you staying for’

‘Not long.’

‘Better not be. Or else I’ll have to go out and get a job.’

Despite sleeping with all her professors (or so she said), Helen had failed her first-year exams in university. She’d repeated the year but, when she failed the exams again, she gave the whole thing up as a bad job.

That had been the previous summer, and she hadn’t managed to get a job in the meantime. Instead she spent the time hanging round the house, annoying Mum, badgering her