I eventually approached him and asked him if he wanted to head out and up town to get chips, or go sit by the lake and smoke. The music was loud, ‘Children’ by Miles, trancey. I shouted, he shouted back. What?/where?/you?/lake?/what?/sorry can’t hear/yeah/yeah/go … to … the … lake? OK. Great.

As we walked towards the playground at the top of the town, he went into a biker bar for alcohol (on my insistence) and came out with a light grey bottle of peach schnapps. It was all they’d sell to him, possibly not knowing it had the same percentage as top-shelf liquor, but what with its soft orange peaches and the delicate feel of the glass bottle, no self-respecting barman in a hardy town would believe it was as strong as whiskey.

When we reached the playground, I lay back on the merry-go-round, and he pushed me around for some time. The lit cigarette made bright orange circles in the night sky. I smoked one cigarette off the other in that way you do when you’re excited. Or nervous. In the middle of the lake was a house, and the light was on in the front window, McGahernesque – the local bishop’s palace, perched on the island in the centre of the lapping water. We played at guessing what was happening at this hour of the morning to deserve a bishop’s attention. Eventually we agreed that whatever was happening at two a.m., or shortly after, was bad news.

The smalt mist rolled in, near us a swing clashed in the dark, the plastic seat was broken in half. We took turns with the bottle, chatted about music, teachers, the light in the house, the sugar content in the alcohol, the Leaving Cert. Then we kissed. He put his hand down the front of my velvet tan hipster pants and kissed me harder and I kissed him back, open-mouthed. I was lovely drunk. The lake water lapped up near the playground. Sweet papers whipped up in the tennis court. Someone switched off the light in the house as we finished off the end of the thick liquid.

I never liked peaches.

I tasted his hair in my mouth, cheap body spray, my hips were tense, the skin on my stomach like bodhrán goatskin, stretched and pulled tight around its wooden frame, then nailed. My skin stung.

After, as we lay back on the merry-go-round and ran our feet off the ground, he told me about his mother, how she liked to keep everything spotlessly clean so that he’d rather stay out of the house for as long as possible, often for days on end; she rarely noticed his hiatuses, but immediately screamed at him to remove his shoes as he returned, as though he’d never been gone. She made him play piano and read poetry aloud at Christmas for a house full of guests he’d never met before. But mostly, when there wasn’t an occasion, his mother just hung around the house, spaced out. His father was a judge in the courthouse that sat beside the playground. I knew his father’s name from news reports about farmers round our way who kept dogs locked up or put cheap diesel in their tractors. He wasn’t for me. She’d hate me, the mother, who sat at home polishing and forgetting about her son, except during Christmas when the piano-playing and poetry recitals were required. I didn’t suggest we see each other again, though I wanted to. But I knew his mother would make sure he didn’t waste his time with girls like me, and in that way mothers know best – I didn’t stand a chance.