Malachy sat on the end of the bed beside the little bump her feet made. He did not know what to say, or whether it was right to say anything. He tried to smile encouragement. She had turned her battered head enough to see the flowers. He felt his inadequacy.

When he was with the dossers, sleeping in the underpass on and under cardboard, drinking with what he had made from begging, and knowing he could not fall further, he had not felt this low. The silence nagged between them.

Maybe an hour passed. She slept and he sat dead still so as not to wake her.

The question cracked in his ear. Brusque. 'What's a piece of shit like you doing here?'

The nephew was behind him. He carried a large, varied bouquet in one hand and a clear plastic bag in the other, packed with apples, pears, bananas, peaches, a pineapple and grapes.

'Why are you here?'

He was shivering. His whisper was a chatter in his teeth: 'I came to see if I could help.'

'Oh, that's good, "help". Didn't "help" enough to walk her there and back – no, no.'

Malachy stammered, 'She didn't ask me. If she'd asked me… '

'No fool, Aunt Millie. Wouldn't have reckoned you up to it, walking her there and back.'

'She didn't ask.'

'You came down from a great height – right? Hit the bottom – right? I know who you were and what you did. I know what they called you. Fancy phrases from the medics, but the truth from the jocks. I know.'

His head drooped into his hands. He sensed the nephew go past him and he heard the kiss placed on Millie's forehead, would have been where the bruises were. More sounds. The splash of water, then the thud in the tin waste-bin, the crackle of the Cellophane wrapping on the bouquet.