‘She’s good. They’d the first scan. The ­what-­you-­call. The sonogram. The womb. Might as well be footage of the moon.’ Murt supped his Guinness. ‘Jamie’s insisting now he wants to sell the car. He says getting into it feels like climbing into someone’s tomb.’

‘Nugent’s alive.’

‘He gave it some try, though.’

‘He won’t get much for that yoke at this stage,’ Eileen said. ‘Scrappage, is my guess. Come up tonight, though. Mark’s birthday. We’re having people.’

‘He says there’s a cursed energy to the car now. A malignant charge, when he gets in,’ Murt said.

‘How’s the writing class?’

‘The class is fine. Sound skins. Everyone is seventy, but they bring in ­home-­made scones every week.’

‘Well, there you go,’ Eileen said.

The party had been going for several hours by the time Murt showed. Eileen saw his head bobbing in the crowded sitting room. She picked up a bottle of Guinness and made her way towards him, stepping carefully over Ashleigh, sprawled with four other kids on the ground in front of the TV, refereeing who went next on the Xbox.

Murt saw her, put his head down, shouldered a channel towards her.

‘Brought these with me if you don’t mind,’ Murt said. Two women and a man were following him. They were all old.

‘Oh, God, of course not, love!’

‘This is Freda, this is Margaret, and this is Tom,’ Murt said. ‘Everybody, this is Eileen.’

The women were smiling but looked a little apprehensive. Around them people heedlessly jostled and cawed.

‘Come on and I’ll get you a drink,’ Eileen said gently.

‘Go on, they’re my crowd to babysit, I’ll get them a drink,’ Murt said.

Eileen let him go. Mark appeared beside her, slid his arm around her waist. ‘Who on earth invited the biddies?’

‘Murt brought them.’

‘Murt. Well, fair play,’ Mark said.

Some of Mark’s friends produced a guitar and a squeezebox. They played ‘Sally MacLennane’ and ‘The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn’, ‘Johnny Jump Up’ and ‘Solsbury Hill’ and ‘Leave Me Alone’.