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‘Fucking terrible, sure it is. You should see what the dirty wee bastards are getting away with now.’

‘We’ll fucking get them for you, Grit, we will.’

Sometimes the crescendo of cursing got so bad that my husband, a man not unknown to swear himself, would turn his head and lift an eyebrow. Grit would clock it, and his natural courtesy would kick in.

‘Listen Dave, big Mel, ah’m sorry, ah cannae stop fucking swearing. Lads, tone it down. Stop fucking swearing so much. Youse are upsetting people.’

Weeks later, in the gym, when Grit was getting around, first on crutches, then a stick, he busied himself bringing cups of water from the cooler to those of us stuck on machines. One day I was strapped upright, my head at least twelve feet in the air, on a tilting table with a mechanism which moved your feet backwards and forwards – towering like some ghastly human sacrifice over everyone else in the gym. Grit, who couldn’t reach high enough to put the plastic cup of water in my hand, put down his stick and starting climbing up the frame to give me the water. Only one side of his body worked, and he was utterly precarious, but he made it up and down safely and glowed with paternalistic pride as he watched me.