That stopped him in his tracks. The barbs were too sharp and specific. They stung and they were disorienting him. He couldn’t figure how I knew about the skateboard.

He glared at me and stood up in a fury. Then he got up and walked out the door. I didn’t follow: I pulled his plate over towards me and sat quietly polishing off the rest of his chips and enjoying my tea.

Two minutes later he walked back in and sat down.

‘Okay,’ he said, sulkily.

I pushed the plate back towards him and smiled.

That’s how it started. Now he’s a grown man, with a girlfriend and a baby on the way and a stake in our newsagent’s. He never got that tall but he keeps in shape: he’s a wiry, quick wee nut and he knows everything and everyone and how to dodge trouble. He gave up the fags when he turned fifteen, and got into kick-boxing and Thai cookery and later a part-time business degree. Phyllis loves him, and even says so occasionally, like the sap she’s always been. I suppose I do too, although it would freak him out if I ever admitted it, so I just get him a present on his birthday and see him right with his Christmas bonus and leave it at that.

He didn’t ask me about McGee again. I respected that. It takes intelligence to know when it’s better to keep a box locked. I’ve never had a reason yet not to trust him, but after all these years I still keep half an eye on him. Okay, a quarter of an eye. The thing is that in some ways he’s very like me.

Mrs Hackett got her Walnut Whip money – which according to Marty she accepted with good grace, even insisting he took half back – but she’s been dead five years now. McGee’s shop closed down when the old man retired. It’s turned into a chemist’s, and Phyllis goes there for her prescriptions. Belfast has changed, too. Everywhere you turn there are fellas with rampant facial hair sucking on giant sippy cups of warm, coffee-flavoured milk. The place is hiving with restaurants, with new eateries competing for awards every week. It’s as if after all those long years of constant arguing people now can’t get enough of stuffing their faces.

We came late to the recreational possibilities of food, although those of drink had been heavily explored. I can remember back when the city, wrapped in the drab shawl of the Troubles, had only one Italian restaurant, Luigi’s, run by a middle-aged owner who was a perfect caricature of an excitable Neapolitan. It was as though – in the absence of any other prominent Italians in Belfast – he was determined to give us our money’s worth in terms of gross stereotyping.