Cormac straightened, his eyebrows reaching towards each other, and attempted to start several sentences, none of them getting past the first word. ‘Don’t take the piss out of her,’ he said, finally. ‘She’s had a shite time. She’s been bloody generous.’

‘I know,’ said Matty. ‘I’m going soon.’

‘Right,’ he said, casting over another perplexed look. ‘Good.’ He didn’t seem especially pleased.

It got colder. Darker. Closer to Saturday, and the use of the car. Three days. Matty kept returning to the map, burning a hole in the coastline, imagining Joe there, where those cliffs were, or that small town. Brigid drifted round the house with a self-satisfied smile, her fingers trailing on things. Two days.

They were sitting on the sofa, Matty having cooked sausage and mash, the only dish in the repertoire. Vegetarian sausages burnt more quickly, as it turned out. Brigid was looking over at Matty, who was turning the pages of a book on Gaudí, the buildings dripping. ‘You make me weak at the knees. I feel like a teenager.’

A smile at the book. An untruthful one. Tough, fierce girls were better. Girls who went on top as well as underneath, bashed the bed against the wall, yelled. Sarcastic, sharp.

It wasn’t that it was horrible. It was comforting to have skin to touch, hair on the next pillow. To feel wanted, and safe about feeling wanted. Dale was not the end of everything.

Matty reached over and ran fingers underneath Brigid’s chin, to the dark, fine hairs tipped blonde with bleach.

‘Don’t,’ she said, suddenly awkward, moving her head away. Looking back, self-conscious. ‘I hate them.’

‘It’s nice.’

‘You’re welcome to them.’

Plenty of times Matty had rubbed a hand over the pale, clean jawline in the mirror, imagining the stubble. Had drawn it on once with eyeliner, aged fifteen and drunk on cider. Scribbled in a moustache. Scrubbed it off, a faint smudge remaining the next day.

Matty cycled to the lough mid-afternoon, timed to coincide with the end of school, the light just starting to deepen. Getting on for the shortest day.

The birch trees were bleached grey, the hard red berries not quite reachable from the jetty. Matty walked down to the beach, tugged a few off. Stood at the end of the jetty, throwing them in one at a time, the resolve to get in, even for a dip, fading. The water still reeked of Dale. Of being held down. The berries floated, gathered together again.

Happiness at the sound of the bicycle wheels. Matty didn’t turn round. Sheanna was already bouncing up, chattering about school stuff.