‘Maybe. I’m not saying he’s there. Your guess is as good as mine. On the west side, though. I’m sure of that. Small place.’

The road map closed. ‘OK. Thanks.’

She came out onto the step. ‘If you ask me, you’re more traveller than he was.’ She nodded at Shifty. ‘It’s good to see you keeping the tradition alive. Don’t be a stranger, now.’ There was no hug.

‘It was nice to meet you.’ It was, of a sort. At least her.

‘Well, if you see him,’ Maureen said. ‘Give him a bloody mouthful from me.’

His raft of songs. Country songs, Irish ones, disco songs off the radio. He’d do naff Bee Gees moves, the Moonwalk, anything to get the laugh. He’d watch Top of the Pops with Matty, half an eye to the paper, throwing out comments about their ‘daft get-up’, as he’d call it. Pointing out that the guitars weren’t plugged in.

There’d been no more J. Ronans in the phone book, but maybe the phone book wasn’t everything. Maybe he wasn’t in it. Maybe he’d changed his name.

He’d sing ‘Home on the Range’ when he’d had a drink, put his arm around Rosa, eyes all misty.

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.

Matty drove back towards the Forest Park for the evening, into a late afternoon sky full of grey clouds.

Chapter 6

A proper cough this morning, a bruised, spreading pain in the chest each time. It always felt damp first thing, throat clogged, but this was worse. Bones heavy, too. Hip hurting from the thin mattress. Matty boiled the kettle again, spat up a few green globules of phlegm into the sink. Ireland was finally working its way in. Back to bed for the morning, listening to rain as hard as hail on Shifty’s roof, too tired to get the generator going, the gas rings left on instead for warmth.

It made Matty want to go home. Whatever home was. There was money now, money to buy a place, but it still felt unreal, like it might disappear from the bank, vanish to zero.

Maureen and everyone. They were family and yet – they had nothing in common apart from the dark hair. It made Matty want to go to Italy again, to the house with the lopsided staircase and the constant smell of cooking. Except that Nonna had lied, all this time. So that wasn’t home either.

Matty stared at the beads of condensation on the back window. Reached up, wrote J.O.E. The letters immediately spilled, growing a single long leg, as if each letter was a struggle and needed holding up. The colourless sky could be seen in the drawn curves.