The truth was that it hadn’t even crossed my mind to contact Davy, or my parents, or Sadie, or any of my other friends. I had retreated behind the walls of my tower and recovered as best I could. On my own. Like I always did.

Davy shook his head.

‘That’s bullshit, Finn,’ he said. ‘Promise me, next time, you’ll call.’

‘Next time my car is burnt out, I’ll definitely call,’ I said.

Davy’s face was like granite.

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it. I know our relationship has got more complicated in the last while but …’

‘It’s not a relationship,’ I said.

‘Whatever it is.’

‘It’s not going to happen again.’

‘That’s what you said last time,’ he said.

‘It’s what you said too, if you recall.’

‘I recall.’

Davy had messaged me around 10 a.m. to ask if I wanted to go for a run. I had replied, saying that I was still in bed but awake and that he could call by for coffee if he wanted. We didn’t bother with coffee, as both of us had probably known we wouldn’t, and I didn’t bother telling him about my car until he was putting his jeans back on. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Anyway, I was due at my parents’ house for Sunday lunch and I needed to get going. By now they knew that I was on an unscheduled holiday from work and, as usual, my mother was worried. Her anxiety levels would go off the scale once she heard about my car.

‘Do you want me to drop you over to your parents’ house?’ Davy asked.

No, Davy, that’s the last thing I want.

But I’ve just had sex with you for the third time in a week.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You can drop me over. Thanks.’

My words came out in a whisper, and Davy said nothing but I think he knew how hard it had been for me to say yes. He took my hand as we walked out of the lane and on to Barrack Street. I let go first as we approached his car.

My parents lived halfway up Gardiner’s Hill, on the left side of the road. It was so close to the primary school that, when I was a pupil, I could be home for lunch almost before the bell stopped ringing. And it was near enough to the corner shop for my mother to stand at her gate and watch little me walk there and return with a litre of milk or my dad’s Evening Echo.

‘You have to give the child a bit of freedom,’ my dad used to say, as I got older.