‘Stop,’ Arm said, and put his hand over that part of Jack’s head. Jack slapped again, hit the buffer of Arm’s hand, then dug his nails into Arm’s skin. After five seconds whatever possessed him subsided, he pulled his nails free, and within ten he was burbling happily again.

In Supermacs Arm and Jack took the booth nearest the entrance, the booth they always took. It was Saturday but the place was swarming with convent girls—they were in doing weekend study, Arm guessed, and had descended here on their lunch break, and now they milled and ate and chatted in a chaos of perfume and high voices, a chorus of mobiles chirping and bleeping around them. Jack ate his chips one by one, as he always did, before attending to his burger. Six girls were squished into the adjacent booth, practically spilling into each other’s laps. A couple of them were shyly watching Jack. He took the top bun from the burger, held the inside up to his face and, moving it circumferentially in front of his gob, licked every last particle of ketchup and grease from it, then replaced the bun back on the untouched patty. And that was that, that was Jack’s version of eating a burger. Arm heard the girls laugh then stop themselves, and without eyeing the culprits he managed a smile. Arm wanted them to know it was okay; they had permission to find Jack funny. Because he was, he was a funny fucker.

Arm told Ursula he would take Jack to the horses next time, to watch the boy ride first-hand. They were in the kitchen, Ursula smashing eggs against the porcelain lip of a mixing bowl, seesawing the yolk back and forth between each shell-half until the clear glop had run off.

‘I bet you will,’ she said.

‘Did I or did I not get up on that beast? I want to see Jack do it.’

‘Uh huh,’ she said. ‘Standing there silent, with the legs out,’ she braced her hips and mimicked Arm’s stance. ‘You think you’re a solid block of charm, huh?’

Their exchange was accompanied by a succession of muffled bangs going off around their heads. Jack had shed his trousers, scaled the washing machine and was now taking a tour of the countertop that ran along two walls of the kitchen, skipping adroitly over the cutting board and microwave and toaster, attempting to pry open the safety-locked door of every wall-mounted cupboard and press.

‘Got to head,’ Arm said, ‘bye, Jack.’

Bang on four Arm was at the usual pick-up spot, the pebble-dashed wall of the petrol station at the foot of his estate. He rested his tailbone against the wall, plugged in his headphones, and watched the road for the shitbox. After a while it appeared, the inimitable lump of Dympna’s silhouetted head rocking to and fro in the windshield. Dympna pulled up, popped the passenger door and sunk back into the driver seat. He was wrecked, scalp shining, cheeks mottled with lividity. A half-empty bottle of Fanta was wedged at an angle between the front seats, behind the handbrake. Dympna lifted it, took a guzzle, violently massaged his eyes and brow.