The conversation was awkward.

‘Hey,’ Conor said.

‘Hey.’

‘What’s up with you? Why are you in?’

Laura held up an armful of nursing textbooks. ‘Library. You?’

‘Problems with registration.’

(Yet another mystery: neither Brendan nor Eileen Harris could remember Conor encountering any ‘problems with registration’ in the late summer of 2004. The college confirmed, during the trial, that Conor’s bank giro – for the payment of standard fees – hadn’t even been sent out by 2 August. So what was Conor doing outside the Quinn School that afternoon? Waiting to see if Laura happened by? Meeting someone else?)

‘Will you be playing this year?’ Laura asked.

Conor shrugged. ‘Hope so.’

Laura looked around: the quiet campus, the summer sun.

‘Are you, like, seeing anyone?’ Laura asked.

Conor shrugged. ‘How’s Richard?’

‘He’s fine,’ Laura said. She tried for levity. ‘I heard you scored, like, Lisa McKeown.’

Conor blushed – something Laura had never seen him do. She realized that Conor was still in love with her.

‘It was just this random thing,’ Conor said.

‘Well I hear she likes you,’ Laura said gently.

Conor said, ‘Yeah, well everybody likes me, babe.’

They laughed.

Conor said, ‘You going out tonight?’

‘Yeah, we’re going to Bondi,’ Laura said. ‘You?’

‘Don’t know yet. Might go to Harry’s.’

‘Will Lisa be there?’

‘Yeah right. That’s why I’m going.’

‘Listen, Conor,’ Laura said. ‘Take care of yourself, alright? You’re a good guy.’

They embraced and Conor watched as Laura walked away. (‘Her ass,’ he told me once, ‘is, like, made for tracksuit bottoms.’) She disappeared beneath the concourse, on her way to the library.

The next morning Laura came downstairs to find her mother in the kitchen, brewing coffee in the percolator. On the table was a bag with the BT2 logo on the side.

‘Conor Harris was here last night,’ said Mary Haines. ‘He told me to give that to you.’ And she made the sort of face that mothers make, the face that says, I know what’s going on here.

Laura opened the bag. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a black hoodie, spangled with silver stars.

‘Oh my God,’ Laura said.

‘That’s lovely,’ Mary said. ‘Try it on.’

Laura tried it on. ‘It makes me look pregnant.’

‘No it doesn’t,’ Mary said.

Laura went into the living room and examined herself in the mirror above the mantle. She decided that the hoodie did not, in fact, make her look pregnant.

She went back into the kitchen. ‘What time was Conor here?’ Laura asked.

‘About eight,’ her mother said.

‘Did he stay?’

‘No, he wouldn’t stay. He’s a very polite young man, though.’

‘I’m not back with him, Mum,’ Laura said.

‘I never said you were,’ Laura’s mother said. ‘Well? Are you going to keep it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Laura said. ‘It cost, like, two hundred and fifty euro.’

Laura’s mother made her knowing face again.

‘Stop it, Mum.’

That afternoon, Laura wore the hoodie to lunch with Richard Culhane.

‘This is new,’ Richard said, reaching across the table. ‘Where’d you get it?’