‘I was only gone into the doctor’s with my daughter. She has spina bifida. I have the handicapped sticker alright but it’s lost. I had to carry her home in my arms.’

‘Three hundred even.’

‘The van isn’t worth that.’

‘Not my problem, son.’

‘I don’t have three hundred.’

‘Not my problem. Your problem.’

‘If the wind changes that face will stick on you.’

‘If you’re going to be abusive you can leave the way you came.’

‘I want to speak to the manager.’

‘Hello good evening and welcome. Three hundred and you’re on the road.’

‘Ye’re licensed by the council, ye are? Council know this the way ye’re treating fathers of spina bifada children?’

‘Much have you on you?’

So it was that when he was hauling into the juvenile detention unit he didn’t even have the price of a bottle of Coke for Tee-J. The better news was that there was three-quarters of a tank of petrol and the DVDs were still under the boards. Imagine, he thought, if you did have a child with spina bifida? He was sobbing uncontrollably by the time he parked the Hitachi in the visitors’ car park.

Wiped the tears away as he crossed the car park and the summer sky was white and massive and it made him feel headachey, out of sorts, clairvoyant.

Patrick Mullaney could tell you this much for nothing: there wasn’t anything good coming.

Tee-J was waiting in the reception area with some class of a supervisor, a glorified swing-key except the swing-keys wore baby blue polo shirts in this place and smiled all the time. There were rapist young fellas playing pitch ’n’ putt in these places.

Tee-J wouldn’t even make eye contact with his one remaining brother.

Tee-J turned to the polo shirt as Patrick approached and he said:

‘You can tell this cunt to go sling his huke.’

‘Ah Teedge …’

Tee-J had outpaced the guard till the guard hit the ditch and he wound up sitting on the bonnet of the Isuzu Trooper in Strandhill and looking out over the sea smoking a fag like he was off a film. Of course the guards knew full well who it was they’d been chasing – Mullaneys in this neck of the country were in no need of identikit mock-ups. Patrick had had a bad feeling about Tee-J around that time. The daft child had a black-moon look about the eyes and Patrick reckoned if the Teedge wasn’t held safe behind bars, he was going to be toes up on a slab with the hair parted wrong. So he turned his own brother in and that felt so like it was off a film he almost heard the music strike up on the soundtrack.

The polo shirt was all in a flutter – loving it – as he tried to bring the brothers together. Patrick wondered if they weren’t all half-steamers working in these places.