‘We weren’t that far from home really. Just the last bit of the motorway. One minute I was tucking the blanket back over my brother, who’d fallen asleep, and the next all I remember is lights. Huge white lights beaming directly in front of us, then the most ungodly noise I ever heard for a fraction of a split second. Not even a blink of an eye.’

I looked back out over the dark ocean but, in my mind, all I could see was that night.

‘You don’t have to go on.’

‘I’d like to.’

This time he gently lifted my hand and placed it within his own. I kept my focus on the water. If I looked at him now, I wouldn’t be able to do it, and I really did want to. I didn’t know why. Every time I came to Ireland, it had an effect on me, and Lorcan was no exception. In fact he probably had the biggest effect of all. But watching and listening to him with his mum this afternoon had dredged up memories and feelings and now they were clamouring to be heard.

‘I must have blacked out for a bit but when I came round, the car was on its side several hundred feet from where we’d started. It was crumpled around us and I could see the front was just…’ I swallowed and Lorcan tightened his hold. He got the idea.

‘I started calling my parents. Screaming for them, I suppose. I don’t know. And then for my brother. Suddenly, he made a noise and I felt about for him. We were all folded into this tiny piece of metal although, from what I could make out in the dark, the door on my brother’s side had gone. I felt around him and it was all wet. He was making these tiny little sounds and all I could say was how much I loved him and how he had to be strong for me and Mum and Dad and that we’d be out of here soon and back home.’

Lorcan let out the faintest of sighs.

‘I don’t know if I believed that or not at the time. I think it was the only thing my brain could cope with. Anything other than that was just impossible. I wouldn’t let it be possible.’

I swiped at my eyes and nose with my mitten.