The mood of the room had swung upwards, the way wakes do: people had worn themselves out on pain, they needed to catch their breath before they could go back there. The volume was rising, more people were piling into the flat and there was a burst of laughter from a gang of lads near me: “And just when the bus starts pulling away, right, Kev leans out the top window with the traffic cone up like this and he’s yelling at the cops through it, ‘KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!’ . . .” Someone had pushed back the coffee table to clear a space in front of the fireplace, and someone else was pulling Sallie Hearne up to start the singing. She did the compulsory bit of protesting, but sure enough, once someone had got her a drop of whiskey to wet her throat, there it was: “There were three lovely lassies from Kimmage,” and half the room joining in on the echo, “From Kimmage . . .” Every party in my childhood had kicked off the sing-along the same way, right back to me and Rosie and Mandy and Ger hiding under tables to dodge being sent to the group kiddie bed in whoever’s back bedroom. These days Ger was bald enough that I could check my shave in his head.

I looked around at the room and I thought, Someone here. He would never have missed this. It would have stuck out a mile, and my guy was very, very good at keeping his nerve and blending in. Someone in this room, drinking our booze and ladling out the maudlin memories and singing along with Sallie.

Kev’s mates were still cracking up; a couple of them could hardly breathe. “. . . Only it’s around ten minutes before we stop pissing ourselves laughing, right? And then we remember that we were legging it so hard we just jumped on the first bus we saw, we don’t have a fucking clue where we’re going . . .”

“And whenever there’s a bit of a scrimmage, sure I was the toughest of all . . .” Even Ma, on the sofa sandwiched protectively between Auntie Concepta and her nightmare friend Assumpta, was singing along: red-eyed, dabbing at her nose, but raising her glass and sticking out all her chins like a fighter. There was a gaggle of little kids running around at knee level, wearing their good clothes and clutching chocolate biscuits and keeping a wary eye out for anyone who might decide they were up too late. Any minute now they would be hiding under the table.

“So we get off the bus and we think we’re somewhere in Rathmines, and the party’s in Crumlin, not a chance we’re gonna make it. And Kevin says, ‘Lads, it’s Friday night, it’s all students round here, there’s got to be a party somewhere . . .’ ”