As the game went on, Ben kept stealing glances up at Shauna, watching her alternate between paying attention to the game and conferring with Alice. He studied her face for clues about what she was thinking, but the thing about a face was that you could read anything you wanted into it. What Ben wanted was to take Shauna aside and tell her to do whatever she liked with her life but not to fuck about with his little brother in the meantime.

The game was ­1–­1 with ten minutes left when Danny decided it. Ballina won the ball in the middle of the park. Danny, on the edge of the Foxford penalty box, with a great lunk of a centre half climbing all over his back, let the ball roll to him and flicked it first time with the toe of his boot up over his right shoulder. The centre half could only watch the ball float over his head, close enough that for a moment he could have reached out and touched it, as Danny spun instantly left and was there to collect the ball before it touched the turf on the other side of the stricken centre half. As he did so, the covering centre half lunged at him. Danny took a calm, almost decorous, step out of his path and in the same movement rifled the ball cleanly across the keeper and into the net. A cheer erupted from the crowd and Budgie punched the air.

‘That’s it, Danny!’ JJ shouted.

‘Nice goal,’ Ben said, ‘but he should be scoring three a game against this shite.’

‘I know,’ JJ said.

Danny, who did not react at all at first, evaded the attempted embraces of a couple of teammates and made a run for the touchline. He came up past Budgie and the two casually ­high-­fived, then he kept going until he reached Shauna. Ben saw the smile on Danny’s ­face – knowing, embarrassed and ­determined – as he pulled her close and kissed her and a second, demented bellow of cheers and ironic jeers came up from the crowd. A teammate jumped on Danny’s back and a couple of nearby teenage boys leaped in. Danny let Shauna go and stepped back so she wouldn’t get clobbered. For a moment Danny reared up under the weight of this mob of celebrants, and then he gave in, falling to his knees as more bodies piled on.