At one in the morning, Carmel was messy with drink, and there was a kind of hypocrisy to her sadness. She enjoyed it too much; the wailing and the tears, as she slopped about in the arms of the friend who was trying to lift her back on to the sofa from which she had slid, saying, ‘My Daddo. My Dad.’ It was a very great betrayal – her mouth making noises that her mind did not condone – and the next morning she knew she would not speak of her father again. The world was full of people who did not know him, except in a public kind of way. And the people who did know him – herself and her sister,
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