A few days with Jamie had entirely contaminated Murt’s style of speaking, though he was energised, which was good.

‘Is Nugent’s mother alive?’ Eileen asked.

‘She’s not, but that doesn’t matter. It goes towards my point.’

‘And how is your mother?’

‘That’s not the question.’

‘I was only asking.’ Murt did not respond. He was looking straight ahead. Jogging at them through the hanging vapour was a man in a sopping ­T-­shirt. The number 2012 was emblazoned on it in large white print and for a moment Eileen felt disoriented, as if that sequence of digits, the year they represented, were an unreachably long way away into the future, instead of already gone. Eileen and Murt parted and the man passed between them, eyes resentfully intent upon the middle distance.

‘Cullen. Keith Cullen, that was,’ Eileen said.

‘Loon, in this weather,’ Murt said.

‘You’re telling me.’

‘In the locker room at school once he thumped me on the side of the head for I forget what,’ Murt said.

‘I could imagine, though,’ Eileen said. ‘Something maybe about his sister probably, or his beoir, some no doubt enlightened remark right out of my mouth.’

After a while, Eileen said, ‘I think Nugent’s all right.’

‘I’m not saying he’s not all right.’

They kept walking. Murt felt around in his jacket pocket and pulled out a packet of hard toffees. He grubbed a sweet from its cellophane wrapper and lodged it inside his jaw, offered Eileen one. She took a last drag of her cigarette and flicked it into the Moy.

‘Let me tell you,’ Murt said, sighing.

‘Tell me,’ Eileen said.

‘Being depressed is like being in a dream. The suspicion is that everyone you meet is actually depressed too, only they don’t know it. Or worse. The suspicion is that they’re just aspects of you, manifestations.’

‘I don’t follow,’ Eileen admitted.

‘Cullen, for instance,’ Murt went on. ‘I was just thinking about school this morning. I was thinking about how awful I was back then, and how I was just this wretched little streak of jism. And I was thinking about how many deserved lumps I got, and how Cullen was just one of the many lads who imparted them lumps to me. And then there he is. What is he, then, if not a manifestation?’

‘I did want to ask how your mother is, Murt.’

‘Jesus. Eileen. Fuck. How about: how is Eunice?’

‘Eunice is fine,’ Eileen said tonelessly.

‘Eunice is paying penance for other people’s sins, is what poor Eunice is doing,’ Murt said, agitated.

‘She is,’ Eileen said.

Murt broke into a waddling jog. He went off into the rain, and like a boxer he drew his fists up in front of his face, swinging one out and then the other, imparting lumps to heads that were not there.