‘That’s a good spear,’ said Paddy. ‘It’s really cool. It’s got a good wide head on it, with a sharp cutting edge, good for close-up fighting. Your main spear’s a stabber, a good stabber mind, like a needle, but it doesn’t have an edge on it. It doesn’t cut so well, so it’s no good for slashing.’ Paddy jumped up and took the spear off Ollie. He tested the balance and nodded appreciatively, as if he was some kind of weapons expert. He then took out a rag from his golf-bag and started to clean the blood off it. ‘Now this spear,’ he said, ‘this one’s a beauty. With this big fat blade on it you can use it like a sword to hack. It’s a proper spear, made for fighting not for show. You know what this is? It’s the Gáe Bolg.’

‘The gay what?’

‘The Gáe Bolg. It’s Irish. It means the death spear or the belly spear, for cutting open bellies. My da used to love to tell me the old stories about the Irish heroes and all the old legends. Da used to play the fiddle, in pubs and that. He was from a traveller family before he married my ma. He knew all the old folk songs and the stories, used to be a storyteller too. We went to all the festivals. Gaah, it was a crack, man, he knew some grand tales. Of Finn MacCool, and the greatest hero of them all, Cúchulainn. You remind me of Cúchulainn, Akkie. The Gáe Bolg was his spear. He was the only one who knew how to use it. This famous warrior woman called Scáthach taught him how. It was made from the bone of a sea monster.’

‘Yeah,’ said Achilleus, taking the spear off Paddy and weighing it in his hand without bothering to stand up. ‘Ova happs. That’s a cool story.’

‘You like the spear?’

‘It’s sick. The belly spear, the death spear, the Gay Bulge.’

‘Cúchulainn was like an Irish superhero,’ said Paddy. ‘He was well strong, and brave, scared of no one, he was. He killed the hound of Cullen with his bare hands when he was still just a boy, like you. And his strength, all his power, like, was in his middle finger.’

‘You mean like this?’ Achilleus grinned and gave Paddy the finger.

‘I didn’t mean like that, no.’ But Paddy was giggling. ‘I never thought of that before. His middle finger.’

‘I have the power!’ said Achilleus, sticking his finger up at everyone in the group. ‘The power to give you the finger!’

Ebenezer shook his head and tutted. He didn’t like crude stuff, as Achilleus well knew. It only made Achilleus worse, though. He passed the spear back to Paddy and gave Ebenezer the finger with both hands.