She was in her dressing gown. 'I tell you, just to come from my bed, get myself to the door and your door, that was agony. I mean it.'

They went to the Tenants' Association evenings and on the Pensioners' Association outings and sat beside each other at the Senior Citizens' Christmas Lunch.

They were together on shopping trips and at the East Street stall market. She was with Millie on one Sunday a month when they went on the bus to the cemetery where Phil's ashes were buried. Together, once a week at the Cypriot cafe, they splashed out on pie and chips and milky tea. Dawn was always there if Millie was ill and cared for her. She had been told that everything in the box under Millie's bed was left in the will to her, not the nephew's stuck-up woman. She saw annoyance spread on the slight face below her own.

'Well, that's it, then.'

Dawn croaked, 'I'm sorry, Millie, but I'm really sick.

I'm going back to bed. I can't help it.'

'I didn't say you could.'

'Get the man, him…' Dawn gestured feebly to the next door on the level three walkway. 'Get him to walk you – or don't go.'

The door was closed on her, and the grille gate. She staggered back into flat fifteen, slumped back on to her bed and the pains surged.

12 January 2004

The sign on the lightweight door said: knock – then Wait to be admitted. But every room in Battalion Headquarters was part of the fiefdom of Fergal. As adjutant he had free run. He pushed open the door. There was no electricity from the main supply that day because 'bad guys' had dropped a pylon, and the stand-by generators were barely able to match HQ's requirements. No air-conditioning was permitted and the wall of heat hit him.