He was right. The local community hall had been cleared out and the usual game of Gaelic had to be played as soccer this year, with five-a-side teams turning out for three shorter sessions. Maya had come along since her firm was sponsoring the game. Eddie had been sent off for fouling another player in the first fifteen minutes, which probably suited him because he was already well out of puff. It was unlikely he’d have made it to the end anyway.

‘I swear, all of those young fellas are working out,’ he panted.

‘Go on, that makes you sound as if you’re as old as the church clock.’ Maya shoved him in the ribs.

‘Well, I’m not, but I hardly have the time or the money to join a fancy gym when I’m trying to keep body and soul together in the city.’ He huffed and Liv wished he hadn’t because it was always a sore point with Maya, the fact that on the one hand everyone heard how successful he was, while on the other he never seemed to have enough money to pay his bills. Maya never called him a freeloader, but that was because she didn’t want to upset Liv.

‘Oh, there’s Anya,’ Liv said spotting the willowy blonde standing at the door across from them.

‘Hmm, wonder what she’s doing here?’ Maya said, because there was none of her old gang about. They were much more likely to be recovering from yesterday’s hunt. ‘She looks a bit lost; I don’t ever remember any of her old cronies turning up for the charity match before…’ She looked at Eddie who might have some idea of who’d be togging out for the day.

‘How would I bloody know?’ he grunted before flopping back on the bench.

‘Hey,’ Liv said when Anya came over and stood next to them. She had no intention of falling out with anyone – Ballycove was much too small for that. Even though Pete was her friend, maybe her best friend, apart from Maya, it didn’t do any harm to say hello.

‘Hey, I wasn’t sure if I’d be welcome here today.’ There was something far more fragile about her than Liv had ever noticed before.

‘Public event, everyone’s welcome,’ Maya said, and she pushed over to make room for her along the bench seat.

‘Hullo,’ Eddie said through gritted teeth; he had inherited his mother’s sense of awkwardness around situations that needed defusing rather than further aggravation.

‘Hi, Eddie, have you finished playing already?’ Anya asked, which was nice, because Eddie was hardly the star player of the day.

‘Yeah, well, they brought out some of us more experienced players to get things going; otherwise some of those yobs would just hand the game over to the youngsters.’ He straightened up, managing to look embarrassed and pleased all at once.