'Stunning. If I were his age, I'd be tempted to go and live in a field with her, but the point is, he needs to cop on and stop being so easily influenced by other people. I did not spend thousands of pounds on his education for him to end up living in a tent, regardless of how good-looking his tent-mate is.'

'Gavin likes his creature comforts far too much. Don't worry, Dad, he'll be back home soon.'

Dad was on a roll now. He plonked his coffee cup down. 'I'd understand if he wanted to get into politics and become a lobbyist. Or if he studied science or chemistry and worked on finding alternative energy sources. But sitting around in trees or fields protesting is a waste of time.'

'Give him a chance. He's only just out of college. Everyone needs to explore and experiment while they find out what they really want to do.'

'I set up my printing company when I was nineteen. I didn't have time to go around finding myself. Kids these days have far too much time on their hands. They're spoilt and indulged. They have no concept of reality, of hard times, of making ends meet. That's the problem with Gavin he's been spoilt all his life. Your mother and I were too old and tired by the time he came along to discipline him. He got away with murder.'

'Well, that's true. You were definitely much stricter with us girls he had it very easy. Look, I know he's a bit immature and has no concept of working and managing money or anything like that, but he's a good guy. He'll find his way. He just needs the space to do it.'

'Well, he'd better hurry up. I want him to get a proper job, start earning money and taking responsibility for himself.'

'I dunno, Dad. If I was him I'd stay as carefree as I could for as long as possible. Budgeting and paying bills and a mortgage aren't really a whole lot of fun.'

'He can't be a student all his life. You three girls were living away from home and being independent by the time you were Gavin's age.'

'Well, I bet you after a month he'll come screaming home to a bed, hot meals and clean clothes. He's not cut out for sleeping in mud and building camp fires to cook tofu on.'

Dad laughed. 'He'll die without his cooked breakfast every morning. Now, what am I going to tell your mother about Louise? I'm supposed to come back with the baby's father's details.'

'Couldn't you tell her I was out?'

'I was warned not to come home without the information.'

'Tell her to call Louise. I don't want to get stuck in the middle of this.'

'Louise won't return her calls.'

'Maybe you should just tell her the truth.'

'If I tell her that her eldest daughter, the Cambridge scholar, got pregnant on a one-night encounter, she'll go mad and I'll never hear the end of it.'

'Well, then, tell her that '

Marian walked through the back door with her four kids in tow, interrupting my flow. Shoot! I'd forgotten we had arranged a play-date.

'Hey, Mr D, how's it going?'

'Hi, Marian, how are you? I see you've been busy since I last saw you.' He pointed at baby Ben.

'You'd think I'd have got my tubes tied in a fucking knot after Molly, but I stupidly didn't and now here I am, breast-feeding at forty-one, I'm too old for this.'

'Well, I'm glad to see the fourth child hasn't mellowed you.' Dad chuckled.

'The only time I'm mellow is when I've had six drinks. Listen, I can come back later if you guys want to chat.'

'No, it's fine we're just talking about Louise's one-night stand.' I filled her in.

Dad looked a bit surprised that Marian knew all about my slutty sister.

'Don't sweat it, Mr D. I'm the soul of discretion. Julie and I tell each other everything. It gets us through the day. And, believe me, the days are bloody endless.'

Oscar came over and said he was thirsty. I got up to get him a drink.

'Sit down,' Marian ordered me. 'Oscar, you've just had lunch and drunk a litre of apple juice. Now go outside and play and don't come and annoy me until the first number on your digital watch says two.' Marian ushered the triplets, Molly, Brian and Oscar outside. 'Go on, go out and get some fresh air,' she said, as she pushed them through the door and closed it behind them.

'It's very cold out there,' Dad pointed out.

'Oi, come here.' Marian threw their coats outside after them and closed the door again. 'If they're cold they'll have to run around more to keep warm and they'll burn off more energy. So, what's going on with Louise?'

'Dad is trying to figure out how to tell Mum that her eldest daughter is a slapper. She's not going to react well to the truth.'

Marian sat back and thought about it for a minute. 'I know why don't you tell her that she had a short relationship with this American guy in London and that he gave her his number and address, but when she tried to contact him after he'd gone back to New York, she realized he'd given her false information. That way, Louise wasn't a slut. She was just taken for a ride by a charming arsehole. With no number, no address and not even his real name, there's no way of tracking him down.'

'Impressive,' Dad said.

'I watch a lot of old police shows late at night when I'm up with the baby. You'd be amazed what you pick up.'

'It could work, Dad.' It was the best idea we'd come up with so far.

'I agree,' he said.

'If you want anything else sorted out, you know who to come to. If only I could sort out my own life.'

'What's up?' Dad asked.

'My mother-in-law is coming to stay for two weeks. She thinks Greg is the Messiah and I'm the devil incarnate. She thinks I should be down on my knees thanking God for giving Greg to me. She thinks a wife's place is in the kitchen with an apron on, baking apple pie with a smile on her face. The last time she came to stay I handed Greg a bowl of Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes for dinner and she nearly had a fucking seizure. All the kids had chickenpox and I hadn't been able to leave the house for days. She started telling me that poor Greg needed a decent meal after being out working all day. Why hadn't I gone to the shops and cooked him something nice? I pointed out that my kids looked like they had the plague and the doctor had told me to keep them inside for a few days, and she started telling me that I should have batches of pre-cooked meals in the freezer for emergencies like this.'

'She's dead right.' Dad winked at me. 'A wife's duty is to look after her husband and children. No matter what kind of day my wife Anne had, she always produced a lovely meal for me when I got home.'

'People like her should be shot. She's making women like me look bad.'

Although Dad was winding Marian up, it was true: Mum had always managed to cook dinner for us every night, even with four kids and doing the books for Dad's company. I have no idea how she did it, but she also managed to look smart all the time.

'You modern women want it all college, careers, husbands, babies and domestic harmony. It doesn't work like that,' Dad told us.

'Hang on there, Mr D, I gave up my job to have babies and look after them. When I worked, I managed a team of twenty-five people, no problem. Now I look after four kids and I can barely get dressed. It's a lot harder than it looks.'

'You also have your mum to look after,' I noted.

'Is she unwell?' Dad asked.

'She's been depressed since my dad left in 1979. She's very optimistic, though. She spends all day looking out the window thinking he's going to come home. Strangely, after nearly thirty-two years of no-show, I don't share her faith.'

'That must have been hard for you,' Dad said.

Marian shrugged. 'I was ten when it happened. I don't really remember him. I feel sorry for my mother. It's a waste of a life. When my kids were born all she said was "It's a pity your dad's not here to see them. He loved children." I just about managed to stop myself pointing out that he obviously wasn't too fucking crazy about them, seeing as he left me and my brother behind.'

'Does your brother have children?' Dad asked.

'No,' Marian said. 'He's gay. My mother thinks it's a phase. She still believes that Rock Hudson was straight and that he died of cancer, not Aids. She thinks Elizabeth Taylor spun the story to make herself look like Florence Nightingale, coming in to save her friend Rock.'

'Interesting theory.' Dad laughed.

'When's Dawn arriving up?' I asked. I knew Marian's mother-in-law was due some time this week.

'Forty-seven hours to go till the witch gets here. I'll be spending the next two days scrubbing. I don't want her commenting on my messy house. I've asked Natalia to come and help me do a big spring-clean tomorrow. I swear I wouldn't mind if Greg left me, but if Natalia left, I'd have a nervous breakdown.'

'Who's Natalia?' Dad enquired.

'My cleaning lady,' Marian explained.

There was a knock on the back door. We looked around to see six frozen faces peering in. Oscar tapped his watch. 'It says two, Mummy.'

I opened the door. 'Come on, I'll make you all a hot chocolate.'

'Right, I'm off,' Dad said. 'Good to see you, Marian, and thanks for the alibi for Louise. It'll make life easier for all of us. Good luck with your mother-in-law. You might consider going easy on the cursing while she's in the house. It's fairly full on.'

'I'm a fucking disgrace,' she agreed.

I walked Dad to the door. 'She's as mad as a hatter,' he said, shaking his head.

'True, but she's a really good friend. Very loyal, and generous to a fault.'

'I'll take your word for it.'

'Good luck with Mum. I'll call Louise later and fill her in on her sordid past!'

Later that evening, after the kids were finally asleep, Harry asked me to come and sit down.

'Oh, God, what's happened?' I asked. 'Have you lost your job?'

'No, but I've had to take another pay cut.'

My heart sank. 'How much?'

'Twelve and a half per cent.'

'But you already took a pay cut last summer.' I couldn't believe it. Harry had been cut by the same amount only six months earlier.

'I know. Look, it's across the board. Everyone has to take it. Believe me, I'm not happy about it. We're stretched as it is.'

'We'll just have to cut back.'

'I've been going through some figures today. If we cancel Sky Sports, Sky Movies and the cartoon channels, we can save over a hundred euros a month.'

'Hold on!' I stopped him. 'You cannot cancel the cartoon channels. They are the only thing I have to bribe the boys with. The hour they watch TV every day is the only time I get to actually do things like laundry, tidy up and read a few pages of my book.'

'They can play with their toys instead. They watch too much TV anyway. An hour a day is more than they need.'

'Harry,' I said firmly, 'you're not with them all day long. I need the cartoons. We can cut back on all the other channels, the heating, on groceries and we'll cancel my birthday trip to Paris, but we're not getting rid of the cartoon channels.' Over my dead body were we getting rid of the TV channels. Harry thought the boys only watched an hour of TV a day. In fact, on very rainy days when we were stuck indoors all afternoon, they sometimes watched considerably more.

'Julie, we're not cancelling the Paris trip.'

'Harry, come on, it's going to cost about two thousand euros for three days. It's too much now.'

'No. I promised you that trip. You deserve that trip. I want to treat you. I want the two of us to get away on our own. We are not cancelling the trip.' He looked upset.

I leant over and took his hand. 'It's OK we can go next year when things settle down again and the economy perks up. It's just a trip. It's no big deal. We'll go for a nice meal here in Dublin.'

He sighed. 'I suppose it is a lot of money at the moment. I'm sorry, Julie. I know how much you were looking forward to it.'

'Hey, it's no big deal. Paris can wait.' I tried not to look disappointed, but I was utterly gutted. I'd been looking forward to it more than anything I could remember. The thought of three days away from the kids had been keeping me going for months.

'We'll need to cut back the heating bills. I was thinking we could just have it on from half six to half eight in the morning and then again from five till seven in the evening. I know the house is cold, but we'll just have to wear woolly jumpers.'

It was all right for him in his warm office, but we'd be freezing here all day. I'd have to stock up on thermal vests.

'Any way you can cut back on groceries?' he asked.

'I'll bulk buy in Lidl. That should help.'

Harry ran a hand through his hair. 'Julie, I'm really sorry about this. I can't believe we're bloody budgeting again.'

'It's fine, we'll manage. We have four healthy children, and that's all that really matters. And you still have a job. It could be a lot worse.'

'It feels pretty shit from here. I want to provide for my family.'

'You do. This is just a temporary blip that's out of your control. Salaries will come back up. Should we turn the heating off now?'

'No time like the present.'

'We could watch the last night of Sky Movies in our puffy jackets.' I grinned.

'I'll get the hats and gloves.'

'And hot-water bottles.'

'And a rug.'

'A flask of tea should help keep us warm.' I giggled.

He leant over and kissed me. 'I love you, Julie.'

'And well you might. Now go on, make me a cup of tea and bring in the Cadbury's chocolate fingers. It'll be the last time I taste them. They don't sell them in Lidl. It'll be Rich Tea multi-packs from now on. This could actually work out well I might lose weight.'

While Harry went to make my tea, I sank back into the sofa and tried not to cry.