Jackie said, “I’d say I’d die for Gav. Only if he really needed it, mind. Is this not terrible morbid, Francis? Would you not rather talk about something else?”

I said, “Back in the day, I would’ve died for Rosie Daly. That’s what I’m trying to tell yous.”

There was a silence. Then Shay raised his glass. “Here’s to everything we’d die for,” he said. “Cheers.”

We clinked our glasses, took deep drinks and relaxed back into our seats. I knew this might well be because I was about nine tenths hammered, but I was fucking delighted that they had come in, even Shay. More than that: I was grateful. They might be a spectacularly messed-up bunch and what they felt about me was anyone’s guess, but the four of them had dropped whatever they could have been doing this evening, put down their lives at a moment’s notice and come in here to walk me through this night. We fit together like pieces of a jigsaw, and that felt like a warm gold glow wrapped all around me; like I had stumbled, by some perfect accident, into the right place. I was just sober enough not to try and put this into words.

Carmel leaned in to me and said, almost shyly, “When Donna was a baba, there was something went wrong with her kidneys; they thought she might need a transplant. I told them straight off, not a bother on me, they could take the both of mine. I didn’t think twice. She was grand in the end, sure, and they’d only have needed the one anyway, but I never forgot that. D’you know what I mean?”

“Yep,” I said, smiling at her. “I do.”

Jackie said, “Ah, she’s lovely, Donna is. She’s a wee dote; always laughing. You’ll have to meet her now, Francis.”

Carmel told me, “I see you in Darren. D’you know that? I always did, from when he was a little young fella.”

“God help him,” Jackie and I said, together.

“Ah, now; in a good way. Going to college, like. He didn’t get that off me or Trevor, we’d have been happy enough to see him go into the plumbing with his daddy. No, Darren came up with that all by himself, never said a word to us: just got all the course forms, decided what one he wanted, and worked like mad to get himself into the right Leaving Cert classes. Went after it bullheaded, all on his own. Like yourself. I always used to wish I was like that.”

For a second there, I thought I saw a wave of sadness rise up across her face. “I remember you doing just fine when you wanted something,” I said. “How about Trevor?”