"Also, she destroyed the equipment in my surgery."

Staring out of the window, he patiently awaits my reaction.

Mother looks at me.

I look at Ronan. "What did you just say?"

He gives a calm, graphic account of how the spit fountain in his dental surgery is presently lying in shards all over the floor, along with the former glass cabinet. He recounts how the mechanical-arm light has been pulled asunder, the dental chair has been cut into strips with its insides scattered all over the floor and most of the contents of his filing cabinet have been torn into pieces. The damage he estimates at fifteen thousand pounds.

"Shall I go on, Julie?"

I stand up furiously, eyeballing him in total shocked silence. "You're lying!" I shout.

"It's true."

Harry.

It's the only possible explanation. He must have followed Nicole to the surgery. Or discovered an address, or a name and he traced it to the surgery. He entered via the damaged back door.

Who else could it have been? It makes perfect sense. But not to them: Harry does not eat cheese on toast.

Just my luck.

"I swear to God, Ronan, I did not do that to your surgery. I swear on my grandmother's grave, I swear on..."

Mother: "It's okay, Julie. Sit down."

I sit down, numb.

"I believe you," she adds.

"Well, that's no surprise," says Ronan contemptuously.

"You watch your lip, mister. I'm her mother, and I'm not going to stand here and let you bully her."

"Bully?" he says, laughing briefly. "Haven't you heard what she did to the fish, Gertrude?"

Mother is turning white with anger. "Don't call me Gertrude."

"Mrs O'Connor."

"She already knows," I reply, watching her nervously.

"Did your exemplary daughter tell you that she flushed the fish down the toilet?"

"That's enough now," she warns him, "if you know what's good for you."

"They were flushed down the toilet. Julie told me herself."

"No, they weren't," she replies, paling.

"Fine."

"They were flushed down your gob gob."

"I don't think there's any need to pursue this," I say.

Ronan is frowning now.

"No, GertrudeMrs O'Connorplease, do go on."

"Mother..."

"Did you notice anything strange about your pasta last Monday evening, Ronan?" she says stiffly.

I put my hands up to stop her but it's too late.

Funereal silence.

The kitchen is a graveyard of soundlessness. Ronan's face looks like a tomb. It is pale and morbid and shell-shocked. He is speechless as a gagged mummy. He is beginning to understand things about me and Mother that he never before suspected.

Oh God.

She gets up and goes to the sink, turns on the tap, squeezes in some Fairy liquid and starts scrubbing some cutlery, klakking it noisily on to the draining board.

I start pleading: "Ronan, the fish were already dead. Don't you remember? You put them in the bucket where they suffocated without any water. What was the point in letting them go to waste?"

His countenance registers negative feedback.

"The recipe was straight out of Delia Smith," I urge.

He starts nodding to himself. "I'm beginning to understand."

"Ronan, it was authentic cuisine..."

"With a totally tropical taste," Mother adds, drying the dishes via our Eiffel Tower dishcloth.

Ronan is still sporting his recently crucified expression, his face a damp grey Turin shroud of woe.

His head turns very very slowly towards Mother. His mouth stiffens, and he nods again. "I get the picture."

"Ronan..."

"One of you actually put the dead fish in the mixer...'Moulinex'now I get it..."

"It was me who did it," I urge.

"It was me, Julie," warns Mother, turning to me, trying to cover for me.

"Mother, I'm the one who pasted the fish, have you got that?"

Like, that's an order.

No way is she going down for me.

Ronan: "And then your mother poured it on my pasta."

"You're a quick learner," she remarks.

"That's sick."

Mother: "Were you ill?"

"This is totally insane."

"They kill fish every day," she says. "A few more won't matter."

"There's a psychiatric term for this kind of behaviour."

"Leave Julie alone. She's a very good person."

"Do you think so?"

She rises to her full height: "Yes, I do."

"Then you haven't heard what she did to Sylvana's cat?"

Silence. While I die inside.

I was just about to get rid of it. Oh God, Jesus, he must have seen it under the tarpaulin.

"What cat?" Mother demands.

"The dead cat out on the balcony."

"Are you talking about Prudence?"

"Yes."

Mother loved that cat. Now I'm really scared.

"Oh, don't get me wrong," mocks the swine. "I don't mind; I never had much time for cats. It's just the smell I object to."

I burst out crying.

Mother takes five small sharp steps up to Ronan and slaps him hard on the face.

Now he's holding his left cheek, aghast, like it's just been branded. He's glaring at her, enraged. Sweat bubbles have appeared on his forehead.

"You're just a low-life," she spits at him.

Silence.

"I'd appreciate it if you left our apartment now."

She's glaring at him, her face shiny-white as steel. "You're a bad person."

"Okay." He shrugs.

"You're a no-good wanker wanker."

"I'm a wanker. No problem."

The technical meaning of the w-word has escaped all of her sixty-odd years on the planet. Mother. You can't take her anywhere. You can't even take her home.

"You're a tomcatyou just can't keep it to yourself, can you? You've been out with another woman. You're a shameful adulterer You're a shameful adulterer."

Hold on. How does she know that? Did Sylvana tell her?

Suddenly, everything makes sense. The pasta sauce. In the normal course of events, pouring that fishpaste on to his spaghetti would be a crazily unhinged thing for someone to do, even for Mother. But not if she did it because she thought Ronan was cheating.

"I'm an adulterer. Is this what Julie told you?" he inquires.

She looks furious.

"Don't mind him, Mother; he's not worth it."

"God knows what lice you're bringing back home. I'm not an angel myself, but, my God, from the very start I knew you were bad blood."

"I think it's time for you to go now, Gertrude."

Ronan snaps out his cellphone and his wallet. He flips out a card, calls a taxi company and orders a taxi.

"Mother is staying here, Ronan."

"I'll go, Julie," she says. "I can stay with Bridie while you sort out your differences."

"You'll do no such thing."

I stand up and start ushering her out of the kitchen. I wish she hadn't started this; strictly, it has nothing to do with her.

She flings her apron at me (as if I've just insulted her) and nails him to the wall with a hard glare. Stalking out of the kitchen, she slams the door behind her, leaving both of us ogling the disapparition.

Ronan with this big red mark on his cheek.

46 46.

He's leaning on the kitchen sink with his back to me now, staring out of the window towards the apartment block to the rear.