The road is dark, and he is not near a streetlamp. He waits, sipping the vodka at first, then taking deep gulps. He sees Ann-Marie walk out with a heavy bag, its contents unclear.

He turns on the engine and leans out of the open window. ‘Hie!’

She ignores him.

‘Hie! Ann-Marie!’

She stops and walks over to him.

‘Are you wanting a lift home?’ he says.

‘No, no,’ she says. ‘I’m fine.’ She looks at the thermos cup in his hand. ‘Thank you.’

‘Where are you off to?’ he says.

She starts to walk away, pointing ahead to somewhere vague. ‘I am meeting … Just meeting my dad. Don’t worry.’

She leaves, her light jacket fading into the ill-lit street.

He sits in his own thoughts for a while, but these kinds of memories are like rocks rubbing against raw skin. He prefers to believe they happened to another man. Often this seems true. He likes to use his work shed and take trips to the timber yard when the memory of this man feels too much like himself. These days he has been making a cabinet that needs sanding. New chairs he has finished are stacked in the corner of his work shed, waiting for varnish. He will never get tired of the smell of varnish. Much of the furniture in the house he has made himself.

The previous month, an English shopkeeper at a furniture place in town had asked whether he wanted to supply his work as a ‘local artisan’ and have his photograph taken, to put in the window. But he said no, he wasn’t ‘arty’, not like Christine.

Niall drinks another cup of warm vodka and begins the drive home, passing some teenagers who are walking to the bus shelter, where Ann-Marie is sitting on its sloping red bench. He stops the truck some feet ahead, and notices the teenagers do not seem to know her. He drinks another cup of vodka and gets out of the pickup.

‘Hey.’

Ann-Marie looks up.

‘Hey, hop in. I’ll give you a lift. You don’t want to get the bus.’

Ann-Marie smiles reluctantly. Her bag clinks as she rises and walks over to the pickup. It is fully dark now.

‘Here, take a seat,’ says Niall. He steadies his hand on the passenger window and frost stings his palm.

‘Thanks, Niall.’ Ann-Marie opens the passenger side and snowy air blows in. ‘Are you OK driving?’ She is still standing, holding the door.

Niall takes a minute for her words to sink in. Then he says, ‘Y’all right? I’m all right. We’re fine now. I don’t want you going home on your own.’

‘Thanks, Niall.’ She gets into the pickup, clutching the bag on her knees with one hand, the other gripping the handle in the truck’s door as he starts the drive back to their village.

‘So,’ he says. His breath comes out in steam.