Or that had been Da’s story. Ma was giving me a meaningful look. “And?” I asked.

“And they stayed there! Overnight! We’d no mobile phones back then; they couldn’t ring for a mechanic, or even to let anyone know what was after happening. They tried walking for a bit, but they were out in a lane in the middle of Wicklow, sure, and it was getting dark. They stayed in the car, and the next morning they got a jump start off a farmer going past. By the time they got home, everyone thought they were after eloping.”

She tilted the silver widget to the light, to check that the finish was perfect and to stretch the pause—Ma always did have a taste for drama. “Well. Your da always said to me he slept in the front seat and Tessie slept in the back. I wouldn’t know, sure. But that’s not what the Place thought.”

I said, “I bet it wasn’t.”

“Girls didn’t stay out with fellas, back then. Only slappers did that. I’d never known a girl who did the bold thing before she was married.”

“I’d have thought the two of them would’ve had to get married, after that. To preserve her reputation.”

Ma’s face closed over. She said, with a sniff in her voice, “I’d say your da would’ve done it, he was that mental about her, the fecking eejit. But he wasn’t good enough for the O’Byrnes—they always did have notions of themselves. Tessie’s da and her uncles bet the living shite out of him; I saw him the day after, I hardly recognized him. They told him not to be going near her again. Said he’d done enough damage.”

I said, “And he did what he was told.” I liked that, a lot. It felt reassuring. Matt Daly and his buddies could have beaten me to within an inch of my life, and the second I got out of the hospital I would have headed for Rosie as fast as I could limp.