Marlene strode away, leaving me amazed at how easily she managed walking in such extraordinary heels, and I found myself seeing Ish in a new light as he sat shirtless while Lil finished her first aid work. He might forever be our baby, but he was also a very big and powerful man.

My own father had been a follower of Charles Atlas, obsessed with wide shoulders and narrow hips; I particularly remembered him almost worshipping Charlton Heston in, well, a sort of manly man’s way, I assume without tongues. I had seen a couple of the ‘shots boys’ when Maz and I had done our little bit of Mum-And-Dad Dancing, and that was indeed the look: ‘six pack’, ‘Adonis Belt’ and neither visible body fat nor body hair.

Ish simply sat on a stool, a little bit of muffin top over the waistband of his jeans and three or four small hairs on his chest, along with a couple of scars I hadn’t been told about on his back, clearly from boot studs. Several of the Brood had their eyes his way, but I noticed that while Maria was fully engaged in teasing Ish and Clara, her eyes kept drifting elsewhere, and the targets of her gaze were definitely not male.

Ah. A reminder to myself that the place was, after all, a gay bar.

Lil finished her work, after an odd caress of his back, which was explained by her following question.

“How many cracked ribs, Ish?”

“None, as far as I know”

“Get a back protector. Save some of the raking”

“Ah, that’s rugby. I’m a footy player; don’t get anything like that in my game. Only played rugby cause we moved away from Oz for a bit, and the schools didn’t do footy”

“Is that the jumpy-uppy thing? Refs look like old fashioned butchers?”

“You mean their hats? That’s the one”

“Do they do a women’s version?”

“About a third of all footy players are women”

I must have looked surprised, because Ish was grinning directly at me.

“My sport, Dad, for once! I don’t mean yours are rubbish, but they’re things you showed me, and footy is all mine”

He kept his shirt off for about another fifteen minutes before pulling it over his head once more after a final check by Lil, who motioned for the woman who was clearly her own partner to unlock the door, and then Ish was once again swamped by girls and dragged away, I presume back to the disco room. Maria stayed behind, heading over to the bar. I checked how much Maz had in ger glass (“Dry white, darling”) and followed the younger woman, who had just bought something technicolour from Alwen before settling herself onto a bar stool. As Alwen called me by name as she pulled a goat and poured a pinot grigio, I realised that if I didn’t actually know everyone in the bar, I would do before the end of the evening, and that it seemed as if everyone there already knew us. They also seemed to be settling into couples, or little knots of friends, which lifted my mood from the snark it had adopted when Ish had appeared bleeding.

“Like a second home”

It had been Maria rather than Alwen.

“Sorry? Away with the fairies”

Alwen snorted at that one, and I shrugged.

“Sorry. Probably not the best figure of speech for this place”

She muttered something in Welsh, then smiled.

“Safe space, as I was saying before, but more than that. For the fairies, as you didn’t call them, in particular, this is not just a second home, it’s almost a second family? Not all of us have a Nana Deb, so those of us on this side get to hear a lot of nasties. Marlene sets rules for those”

“In what way?”

Alwen looked up and down the bar for customers before answering.

“First, she doesn’t push a drink-or-leave policy. I mean, bring tour own booze, like TinTin, and you are toast, but if someone looks like they’re just here to breathe a bit, then that’s fine. If they want to talk, that’s what we do. If it’s heavy, though, really heavy, she steps in. Course, the coppers in here are OUR coppers, and the punters know that. Makes a big difference”

“What? Having a gay copper?”

Alwen shook her head, slowly.

“No. Knowing that you’ll be listened to, that’s the difference. And no: not me. I just found the right place to work, like Lil or Ox. No dark secrets in my past”

Maria chuckled.

“I keep offering her dark secrets for her future, but nah”

Alwen blushed slightly, then found her voice once again.

“At the risk of too much info, Maria knows where I am in my head as well as I do, which is not at all. You are so lucky in your son, you know. He knows who he is, but there’s more, because he can see who other people are as well. He can see Clara, for a very big example”

She stepped aside to serve a couple of customers, then picked up the thread almost seamlessly.

“Lots of us have family problems, Mike. Sometimes… mostly, it’s rejection.. Not always. Like ‘Licia’s Dad, for example. Sometimes, though, it can swing the other way”

Maria muttered something harsh, and Alwen nodded.

“Your Dad, yeah. Point taken”

I didn’t want to push Maria, but she shrugged.

“Most of the others know, so why not? It’s quite a common thing for girls like me. Not that shot the press are always churning out, about parents transing their kids Because Reasons, but, well, more than me had this, girls in the House, yeah? Mam takes you shopping, then you realise she’s just doing what Dad told her to do, and then you realise…”

She paused for a moment, staring at the bottles racked behind the bar, suddenly older by what seemed a host of cynical decades.

“I used to look for films about girls like me. I think we all do. There is some real shit out there, and it is so often all about high heels and cleavage. I mean, look at Nana Deb: baggy jeans and a leather jacket”

I caught her gaze in the mirror, and she grimaced.

“I’ll try and explain. We call it ‘Daddy’s Little Princess’. You get some skirts, which is wonderful, and then you realise it’s ALL skirts, and undies. And then he wants you to show him how it all fits, and THAT is where the second family comes in because if you haven’t got one…”

She was suddenly blushing and giggling at once, so the bar girl and I simply waited her out.

“Sorry, but, well sometimes I say something, and it’s all too true, but still funny, and it can stay funny with me because I got our before he could, well, ‘come in’. Some of my sisters, they weren’t that lucky, that quick in getting away. Sorry; downers all over everything. Blame this one for keeping turning me down”

“Told you, Maria: I don’t know where I am, that way”

“You could see where it goes”

“And if it didn’t go, we’d each lose a friend, potentially”

Time to leave…

It was, in fact, getting to that time in the wider sense, as it was pushing eleven, and we started the gathering of our respective herds, Debbie’s lot leaving in two extra-large taxis while ten of us walked the short distance to Welby Towers, where Rachel and Emma turned out to be fast asleep in the conservatory surrounded by younger people, one of whom was in a princess dress. While the Suttons and Powells quietly spread mats and bags in the living and dining rooms, Paula disappeared for a few moments, returning with a large bath sheet for Ish, and the words, “I heard what Marlene suggested”

Maz and I made a point of using our ear plugs.

It wasn’t morning that hit us hard so much as our daughter, who had more life in her than a rational law would have allowed, clambering over me to wedge herself between her parents, and her bare feet were freezing against my thighs.

“Who’s got to make breakfast, Dad? Ish said he wanted to sleep more”

Maz grunted in an attempt to stifle her laughter.

“You woke your brother already?”

“Yes! And my sister!”

Item: locks, Perth bedroom doors for the securing of. Thank god both Maz and I had already adjusted our nightwear habits in response to LC’s presence, but I did wonder exactly what Ish and Clara made do with, if anything at all.

“Time for us to go and find breakfast, Carolyn”

“I’ll get Ish!”

“Not now, love. Mum can get him up when she’s finished in the bathroom. You and me can sort some tea and juice, okay?”

I led her downstairs, where the Suttons and Powells had already been subjected to their own infant lovebombing, and in a few minutes the kettle was boiling again and I was working gas and pan to cook some of the supplies I had brought with us. Sausages done in the oven left the hob free for eggs, beans and toms, while the bacon went onto the grill. Almost too late, I called out “Anyone vegetarian?”

There was nobody immune to bacon, it turned out, and that set the tone of the day. The Powells had to be back home later that day, as unlike us they actually had jobs that required their attendance, but we packed quite a bit in, including a visit to the National Museum at St Fagans, which involved several rides in a pony and trap for certain smaller persons.

None of the rest of us minded, especially when we found the place where they sold cake.