But he can’t hear me of course, so I try to cross the street to get to him and a car slams on the brakes, the driver shouts obscenities at me and I take a step back onto the safety of the pavement, cursing myself for being so careless in my despair. I can’t see him any more. He’s in the car. Oh no, he’s in the car!

‘Matthew, please!’ I call out into nowhere. ‘Don’t do this, I’m begging you! It’s too dangerous!’

I hear the windscreen wipers scream and I too scream out in frustration. The engine roars and I roar too, but it’s too late. He is gone.

Chapter Five

I’m standing in a sticky, roasting hot, hospital corridor back in Dublin city, waiting on a doctor to update us on Matthew’s condition. It’s one of the coldest nights of the year when most people are at home, snuggled up in front of the fire and getting into the Christmas spirit with some old-fashioned movies and a cup of something seasonal.

I haven’t felt the cold all evening though, not even as we trudged through the snow in the hospital car park, or when we stopped at the scene of the accident in horror to see Matthew’s car on its roof, showing up only under the flashing blue glare of a police siren at the side of a country road. We’re all in shock, too numb to feel anything just now.

My mother sits on a bench beside where I stand in the hospital corridor, her pale fingers entwined with pearl-coloured rosary beads, my father’s arm around her frail shoulders. Nurses in soft white plimsolls go about their business up and down the wards, very much business as usual and doing a job they should be canonized for, while hearts break around them and everyone is watching them in anticipation, waiting, pleading on a smile and some good news.

‘It’s just not like him,’ Mam keeps whispering when she’s not blessing herself or humming prayers as we wait. ‘Our Matthew would never get into the car with a drink on him. He’s not well sometimes, but he’s more sense than that. What on earth got into him? Paddy, you’ll have to have a good stern word with him when he gets home.’

My father, a tall, unassuming man who only ever ventures into the city when he really has to, lets out a deep sigh, catches my eye and the fear in his face melts my heart.

When he gets home.

If he gets home is what we’re both thinking, but we can’t say that to Mam who is holding onto those holy beads like she’s grasping onto Matthew’s life.

If I hadn’t spontaneously gone to Pip’s Bar that night, I wouldn’t have met Tom Farley.