Da and Matt Daly were squared off, chin to chin, in the middle of the sitting room. Ma’s lavender getup was splattered with something wet, all down the top, and she was still going (“I knew it, you bollix, I knew it, just the one evening, that’s all I asked you for . . .”). Everyone else had fallen back so as not to get in the way of the drama. I caught Shay’s eye across the room, with an instant click like magnets, and we started elbowing between the gawkers.

Matt Daly said, “Sit down.”

“Da,” I said, touching him on the shoulder.

He didn’t even know I was there. He told Matt Daly, “Don’t you give me orders in my own home.”

Shay, on his other side, said, “Da.”

“Sit down,” Matt Daly said again, low and cold. “You’re after causing a scene.”

Da lunged. The really useful skills never fade: I was on him just as fast as Shay was, my hands still knew the grip, and my back was all braced and ready when he stopped fighting and let his knees go limp. I was scarlet, right to my hairline, with pure scorching shame.

“Get him out of here,” Ma spat. A bunch of clucking women had clumped up around her and someone was swiping at her top with a tissue, but she was too furious to notice. “Go on, you, get out, get back to the gutter where you belong, I should’ve never pulled you out of it—your own son’s wake, you bastard, have you no respect—”

“Bitch!” Da roared over his shoulder, as we danced him neatly out the door. “Poxy hoor’s melt!”

“Out the back,” Shay said brusquely. “Let the Dalys go out the front.”

“Fuck Matt Daly,” Da told us, on our way down the stairs, “and fuck Tessie Daly. And fuck the pair of yous. Kevin was the only one of the three of yous that was worth a shite.”

Shay let out a harsh, bitten-off clip of a laugh. He looked dangerously exhausted. “You’re probably right there.”

“The best of the lot,” Da said. “My blue-eyed boy.” He started to cry.

“You wanted to know how he’s getting on?” Shay asked me. His eyes, meeting mine across the back of Da’s neck, looked like the flames on Bunsen burners. “Here’s your chance to find out. Enjoy.” He hooked the back door deftly open with one foot, dumped Da on the step, and headed back upstairs.