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formica-topped table had been cleared, probably for the first time since his wife left. So far he’d got through about half of it, scrubbing off the sticky bits of gunge. On the dirty half was a pan of brown, sudsy water and beside it – a bar of soap!
    I had no right to ask. He was the one who should have been asking questions about my being there, but that wasn’t Jimmy’s style. I asked anyway.
    â€˜What’s all this about?’
    He hesitated for a moment or two. I could see by the way he was grinding his false teeth that he was in pain and trying hard to overcome it. He cleared off a chair for me and I sat down.
    â€˜I’ll make some tea,’ he said with a twisted smile. ‘It’s a long story.’
    I let myself be carried along on the rising wave of optimism in his words. I was happy for Jimmy. For the first time in years, maybe for the first time ever, he had a plan. The false teeth were only the beginning.
    â€˜You can’t blow a trumpet without them,’ he explained. ‘I have to get used to them again. No matter what it takes.’
    Then the house. He was going to make it a decent place for them to live in and for people to visit.
    â€˜There’s no need for all this mess,’ he said.
    As soon as the house was in order he was going to organise a trumpet for himself. By now, I was so caught up in the whole thing that I was actually forgetting my own troubles, and I decided there and then I was going to help him. I looked around to see if there was any proper cleaning liquid and scrubs under the sink or anywhere else. There was nothing but empty polish tins, rags and an opened packet of washing powder hardened to a slab.
    â€˜Have you any money?’ I asked.
    â€˜Yeah, I’m flush, but I need it for something else.’
    â€˜This is a waste of time, Jimmy,’ I said, pointing at the nailbrush and the soap. He thought about it.
    â€˜How much would all that washing-up gear set me back?’
    â€˜You won’t have much change from a fiver.’
    He went upstairs and was back down, smiling again, sooner than I expected. I noticed how he moved differently, more decisively, and that while he’d been upstairs he’d brushed his long stringy hair back from his forehead and over his ears. That was another first. I’d never seen him with his hair brushed. He had a fiver in his hand. ‘Are you sure you have time to do this with me?’
    I knew he was asking what on earth I was doing there on a school day. I was writing out a list for him and I didn’t look up. I made a start on the place when he’d gone out to the shop and soon found myself taking out all my pent-up feelings on the dirt.
    When Jimmy got back we really got down to it. At twelve we broke for tea. Jimmy said the tea had never tasted so good. I nodded in agreement, but it tasted soapy to me.
    â€˜Jimmy?’ I asked. ‘Do you wash the cups with soap too?’
    â€˜Yeah, I have the cleanest stomach in Ireland!’
    We laughed, but when I think of those words now it makes me feel ill.
    By quarter to one we’d transformed the kitchen, the small sitting room and the hall. We’d filled five big black plastic bags with rubbish and the fake lavender smell of air-freshener was, at last, beginning to win the battle with the odour of decay.
    I was flattened and Jimmy was hardly able to stand, his knees were so sore from his efforts on the floors. But it only took one look at him, gazing around the place in wonder and disbelief, to feel it had been worthwhile.
    â€˜Only for you, Nance,’ he said, ‘I’d still be scrubbing the table.’
    In spite of my tiredness, I wanted a few more hours of unthinking labour. I was ready to attack the upstairs bedrooms.
    â€˜No way,’ he insisted. ‘You’ve done enough. I’ll do the rest myself. I just needed someone to show me how to go about it.’
    â€˜But I’m not doing