‘Can’t say’s I do,’ said Daz. ‘I don’t necessarily know names, just faces. Lots of familiar ones.’ His voice became more dramatic. ‘Some far too familiar.’

Matty tried to describe him. Not tall. Sandy, brownish hair, going a bit grey at the sides. A round nose, like the puppets in Button Moon. Leather jacket.

‘Doesn’t ring a bell. Have you lost him?’

‘Yeah,’ said Matty.

Daz sat up again and looked around.

‘No, he’s not here now.’ Matty didn’t say anything else for a long time, just listening to Gegsy’s robot-music and looking up into the sun. ‘Do you know anyone who has killed themselves?’

Daz and Gegsy exchanged a glance.

‘Blimey, you know how to murder the mood,’ said Daz.

‘Why you asking that, mate?’ said Gegsy, in a gentle voice.

‘No reason,’ Matty said, to the blanket.

‘Most of us are trying hard to stay very bloody alive,’ said Daz, and he sounded more serious than he ever had before.

No one spoke for a while, just watching everyone. The man holding the ball above his yappy dog. The swimmers coming through the gate, their hair wet. Three teenage boys lying very close together, their backs the colour of Super Shrimp sweets. Two olive-skinned men standing doing bodybuilder stretches, all ripples, and other men pretending not to watch them.

Daz made a tsk sound. ‘It’s like bloody tourist season today. All the waifs and gays.’

‘What was his name again?’ said Gegsy, sitting up and lighting his roll-up again. ‘Your dad?’

‘Joe. Ronan.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll try and find out for you.’

***

It was becoming harder and harder to get up in the morning. Matty was aching again, as bad as being on a medieval rack.

Mamma opened the bedroom door. ‘It’s almost lunchtime.’

‘Why are you home?’

‘I forgot something. Why are you being so lazy?’

Matty went under the covers. ‘It’s the holidays.’ Dad’s not here. You don’t care.

‘If it was one hundred years ago, you would be working in a factory.’

‘It’s not, though,’ Matty said with a mouthful of duvet. Wanting to cry and to punch things.

‘Get up and eat something.’ She shut the door.

In the kitchen, Matty opened one cupboard and then another. Peanut butter on bread again, maybe with crisps inside. Or beans.

They should be in Italy, with Nonna and Nonno, and Matty should be on the beach, looking back to see Dad watching and waving. Eating gelato, with Matty always having cioccolato all’arancia and Dad always having fragola. Playing arcade games with him in Rimini – Phoenix and D-Day – until Mamma came to tell you both that Nonna and Nonno were waiting and could Dad stop being a twelve-year-old boy.

She was mean. She was always mean to him. Had been for ages. When they argued, she would sometimes throw things at him.