There were also the boys who barely spoke at all, and these were the ones Pell liked best; the lads who were lean, with long arms and intricately veined wrists, who could stand to inhabit a silence for three seconds in a row. Steven Davitt, the lad at the rear of this pack, was such a specimen. A comely ­six-­foot string of piss, faintly stooped, with shale eyes darting beneath a matted heap of curly black fringe. He shied from looking her way, of course. In the middle was one of the Bruitt boys, the scanty lichen of an unthriving moustache clinging to his lip. Paddy Guthrie, out in front, was stubby and pink and loudly yammering without looking at the two in tow. He was the ringleader, the ­smart-­mouth.

They passed her and slung themselves into seats a few rows behind. There was an interval of scuffling noises, snickering, a distinctly aired cunt or bollocks or shudafagup, followed by a bout of intensive communal muttering. Then a shunt and a rattle as a body cannoned into the frame of the seat immediately behind Pell’s.

‘Hey. Hey, you.’ It was Guthrie. Pell smelled beer on his breath.

‘Hey,’ he said again.

‘What?’ Pell said.

‘You’re Nicky Munnelly’s sister, yeah?’

Pell nodded.

‘And Gerry, Gerry’s sister, yeah?’

‘Uh-­huh.’

‘Gerry’s all right, isn’t he, a header, but good for a laugh in the end,’ Guthrie said. ‘And the fella ­Nick – what used they call him, the Prowler, yeah, back in the day? Me brother Joe came up with him, said he used to torment the priests in there something wicked, broke their hearts every second day. And shagged anything that moved around town.’ Guthrie’s face blinked at her. Pell watched his thin, bright lips pull apart.

‘What do you mean, saying that about my brothers?’ she said.

‘Ah no, I respect the fuck out of them,’ Guthrie said. ‘But, like, they’re a line of hellions, the lads out your way, in’t they?’

‘I never gave it much thought,’ Pell said.

‘Where you going?’

‘Town.’

‘No shit. Whereabouts and whyfor?’

‘Where are you going?’ Pell shot back. ‘Why aren’t you in school?’

‘You know Davitt? His ma’s away, so we were back in his place. There’s all this drink in the shed. Davitt’s ma, she don’t mind us having a couple the odd weekend, but we sneak a few extra now and then on the sly, in between, like this morning.’ He licked his lips again. ‘Bit of a buzz on, and now we’re, well, we’re heading back to school for the afternoon. Dossing gets boring, you know, trying to come up with stuff to actually fucking do.’

‘You were on the doss, and now you’re heading back into school?’