‘Jack!’ Arm shouted.

Jack considered Arm sceptically, fluttered his hands either side of himself, and hopped in place. Then a big drooler, a rock-skulled six-foot manchild with a pudding-bowl haircut and a ratty scrawl of hair on his upper lip dundered by, knocking Jack to the ground. Jack screeched and immediately became interested in something in the grass by his foot. The drooler bent over and commenced groaning into the ear of the horse as he ran his knuckles up and down its neck. The horse, evidently conditioned to such chaos, continued to chomp unperturbed at the grass.

‘Hey now, Kevin,’ the rider said, grabbing his arm and pushing the avidly molesting manchild gently back.

‘He’s autistic too,’ she said to Arm, bending down to swat away the cigarette butt Jack was about to start eating. She grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him to his feet, which was about the only way to get Jack to his feet. Jack coughed and laughed again. The other carers, two grey-haired women with windburned faces, were frantically corralling the rest of the kids. A girl, no more than ten, in a purple leotard onesie and battered fur-trimmed snow boots, hissed and snarled as one of the women secured her in a delicate arm-lock and frogmarched her out the gate.

‘This is some fucking zoo,’ Arm said.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ the rider said to Arm, her smile fading, ‘these kids have a schedule.’

‘I just came to see the horses,’ Arm said.

Satan on Sabbatical was due onstage at nine. Arm got to Quillinan’s early, installed himself at the bar, nursed an ice water and lime, and kept an eye on the door traffic until the man himself walked in, Lisa on his arm. Dympna chin-jutted in greeting and checked his stride to cede right of way to a couple of young ones cutting across him. Arm watched him register their behinds and dolefully smack his lips. There was only a certain type of town female that would go with Dympna. Ranged against him were the taint of his tinker lineage and the spectre of his criminality, as well as the persistent low rumours that suggested he fucked his own beautiful sisters, which made the Fannigan business all the more galling, Arm figured; whatever his other flaws, Dympna was a knight to those girls.

They came his way, arm in arm.

‘How do,’ Arm said.

‘Let’s get this party started,’ Lisa chanted.

Quillinan’s was getting full, buzzy. Brandon and his bandmates had been tireless in dredging up interest. The little stage space was way in the back, and Brandon was out there already, sitting on a stool, an unplugged electric guitar resting face up across his knees. He was scratching out the bare bones of a melody on the dormant instrument. Dympna gave Brandon a thumbs-up and then sculpted his palms in front of his chest, proffering the promised titties. Lisa whooped and clapped her hands above her head. Arm watched the bracelets and bangles adorning her wrists slide from her wrists and bottleneck at her elbows.