‘Where’re you from?’ Maybe Matty was starting to pick up the Irish thing. Everyone always asked that over here.

She sighed. ‘Portugal.’ She turned the cover of the book round. ‘I am improving my English. Although it is not maybe so helpful, as the Irish way of speaking is like another language.’

‘Yeah. I get that.’

A slanted smile. Matty snuck a glance when she’d gone back to her book. Her hair was scraped back messily, the sides uneven. The strip light above them picked out a single spot on her chin. Long lashes. She was cute.

A man in a filthy apron and thin plastic gloves made the beads rattle as he came out. ‘How are you doing, now?’ he said, slapping two boxes down on the raised glass top.

The girl handed over the tin casings with a sullen smile. ‘Enjoy your meal.’

***

24/11/99

LOUGH____, Air 8°C, Water 10°C, 200m

Four hours later, Matty was slouched in the front seat in a car park next to some public toilets, absent-mindedly cutting and re-cutting the pack of cards. Not watching for Joe, or the possibility of Joe, but watching the Vietnamese takeaway.

Earlier, Matty had coaxed Shifty down a bumpy, sodden track that ended abruptly at another lough. Dark purple leaves and foamy scum massed at the shoreline and the leftovers of a jetty, vertical logs with tyres hanging off. A broken disposable coffee cup. The second swim of the day had been short, listless, preceded by a round of sixty press-ups and stomach crunches with feet hooked under the bumper.

Afterwards, half of the reheated takeaway – cashew nut chicken and rice, as Joe always had. Oily steam filling the van. Matty had put the Merle Haggard tape on, songs of whisky and melancholy to go with the food. Tried not to think about the old days, of Joe playing air acoustic guitar, the side of his mouth curling up.

Ah, cheer up. No one’s died.

There was a shout from outside in the car park. Two youngish men, one carrying a fishing rod in a case. He slapped the other on the back and said something else, miming boobs with a cupped hand and pursing his lips. The other man shook his head, laughing, and waved goodbye.

It was seamy, wrong, being back here. But there’d been something in the girl’s look behind the counter, behind the tired sarcasm. She was bored out of her mind. Company might be welcome. Maybe she hadn’t been over here long, might be up for a few beers and whatever came next. It was always good not to expect anything more, to let it come from them if they fancied it. There could be a few home comforts, even if it was in a tiny flat above a shop. Crisps in a bowl and some Portuguese music playing, whatever that sounded like. Speaking rusty Italian, and maybe being understood. Really understood.