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word.
    ‘I’ll give it a lick of paint,’ Pius said then. ‘White all right? I have some in the shed, I think.’
    ‘Thanks, Pi.’ Rosie leaned towards him and planted a kiss on his cheek. He tried to catch her eye but she looked over his shoulder towards the water. ‘We’ll clear all the ivy off first and sand it down.’
    He nodded and turned around, the hen still under his arm, so they couldn’t see that he’d nearly cried on them, burst into tears, like a small child, at the way he’d started to remember. God almighty, Rosie, he thought. Why did you ever have to come back?
    I need a coffee, he said to himself, and trudged in the kitchen door, wiping his boots on the mat. It was one of those novelty ones that seemed to say ‘welcome’ until you looked at it from another angle and it read ‘piss off’. Mary-Pat had bought it for him for Christmas one year, and she’d thought it was hilarious.
    She could be a complete pain in the arse, the same Mary-Pat, Pius thought as he carefully poured water into the coffee maker and twisted the lid, then tapped out the old coffee in the filter and refilled it, pressing it down firmly before slotting it into the machine, the one and only thing of value in this house. He’d ordered it from London, ignoring Mary-Pat’s derision when he’d invited her to come up to the house and try it out. ‘Oh, la-di-dah,’ she’d scoffed. ‘Too good for this place now, are you?’
    ‘No,’ Pius had said quietly. ‘I just like cappuccino.’ He’d been gratified to see the look of shame flicker across her face. ‘Have a Jammie Dodger,’ he’d said, by way of a peace offering. She’d been so surprised to be offered a biscuit that she shut up then for a blessed few minutes.
    Poor Mary-Pat. Rosie’s homecoming had hit her the hardest. Maybe she still felt a sense of responsibility to her baby sister, not sure what to do now that she didn’t have to cook her big dinners and get her out of bed in the mornings. But Rosie was clearly well able to look after herself. Or maybe Mary-Pat was upset that she hadn’t been asked to do more with the wedding. Rosie had made it clear that she and the Yank had it all under control. Maybe that’s why they all felt a bit unsettled – that they weren’t doing the kind of things a family should do for a wedding. They weren’t involved.
    Pius had gone as far as to say it to PJ when he’d been in to the shop for a bit of groundbait. This year, like every year, he’d promised himself that he’d take up fishing again. He’d spent every single day of his young life on that canal bank, rod in hand, penknife in his back pocket to make a shelter for himself out of the willow branches that hung over the dead pool beyond the bridge. And then, after he’d gone into that place, he’d just stopped. Still, every spring he’d take out his old fishing box from under the dining-room table, and he’d open it, and he’d sit there for a moment, looking at the neat rows of rigs, the line neatly tied around them, and he’d announce to Jessie, because she was the only one who listened and didn’t offer an opinion, that he was going fishing again. And she’d wag her tail and look at him expectantly, and he’d close the box and put it away for another year.
    Still, it had offered him an excuse to sound PJ out without having to face his sister in the process. It was the coward’s way out, he knew, but that way he could persuade himself that he’d done something without actually doing it. His
modus operandi
. Himself and Jessie had called into PJ’s Tackle the previous week, Jessie knowing to sit still beside a row of tackle boxes and to keep out of the way, her copper head resting on her two front paws.
    ‘How’s herself?’ Pius had ventured after a few minutes pretending to peruse the merchandise.
    PJ had gone a funny colour, busying himself with lining up packs of mealworm on the counter, before eventually blurting, ‘Ah, sure you know yourself.