I drove for seven hours. On the motorway. It’s actually not a big deal.

Hanneke said we could take our time. We could stay as long as we liked. I said we had to go home.

Home.

We sit on the deck. Dad insisted, in spite of the dark and the air, which is cooler now.

“Eugene? Eugene Keogh?”

I look up. Standing in front of us is a man. A tall man, about the same vintage as Dad, wearing a sunhat, shorts, a shirt buttoned up to the neck and secured with a tie, a pair of calf-high white socks, and thick-strapped black leather sandals. He leans towards Dad, bending a little at his white, bony knees. When he glances at me, his expression is a potent mix of curiosity and wariness. I wonder what he sees? I imagine I have the bewildered countenance of a soldier who has been told the war is over.

The man grins at Dad. “It’s me, Eugene. Damien Harrington. Damo. Remember?”

He lifts the sunhat off his head to reveal a sunburned, hairless pate. “You probably don’t recognize me without my mullet.” He laughs and punches Dad playfully on the arm. Dad looks at the place where he has been punched, rubs it. I stand up. The movement of the boat beneath my feet is unsettling and I grip the rail and close my eyes. I see Iris when I do that. Iris drinking the first drink. In her typically Iris way. Knocking it back without fanfare. Asking when she can take the second one.

Half an hour, Hanneke said.

That seemed like an impossibly long period of time.

Except it wasn’t.

“You must be Eugene’s little princess, you’re cut out of him,” Damien says. I open my eyes. “That’s what he called you, back in the day. We worked the ranks together, me and your old man.” Damien looks at Dad again. “Never shut up about her, did you, Eugene?”

I didn’t know that. That Dad called me his little princess. That he never shut up about me. The man thrusts his hand towards me. “Lovely to meet you,” he says. I take his hand. Hold it. Behind him, darkness blurs the line between the sea and sky, rendering them almost indistinguishable.

I don’t know what I thought about during that half hour. Iris had set the alarm on her phone. Maybe I thought about that. About the sound it would make. The sharp, insistent trill.

Or the phone itself. What would I do with it? Afterwards? What would I do with anything? Her handbag. All her stuff. Her things. The detritus of a life. These stupid, meaningless possessions now seemed vital. I was consumed by thoughts of Iris’s belongings. What would become of them? Iris put her hand on my shoulder. “You look worried,” she said.

“I always look worried,” I reminded her.

“I could sing a song,” Dad piped up.

“That’s a fine idea, Mr. Keogh,” Iris said.

We all sang along for the It’s up to you bit, even Hanneke.