‘My, Maxie, you do have a good memory. That must help when you’re learning your lines. Anyway, I told you they were on a break when he was in Australia.’ Her tone changed, grew serious. ‘He had an accident. A bad one. And it wasn’t completely my fault but some of it was.’ Before they had a chance to ask, she went into detail about what had happened. It was impossible to interrupt her.

It had happened near the pub one night, she said, a month after they visited. She, Emmet and the other bar staff had been drinking after-hours.

‘Just relaxing, you know, kicking back after a busy night. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I was starving. I knew a place that did the best chips, and said I’d shout everyone, but no one would come. Then Emmet said he would. We got there, and it was packed, a queue stretching out the door . . .’

Olivia could remember the feeling of frustration, wanting to hear all about Jeannie’s pregnancy, instead having to listen to her tell this rambling story about her friend.

‘There was a gang of about four fellas behind us in the queue. Aussie guys. Footballer types. One of them said something about me. As in, me physically. Gross. And I said something back. And he said something worse back. And then Emmet stepped in, and there was a bit of shoving and pushing. And one of them, this big drunk guy, started making fun of Emmet’s accent, “tirty-tree” this, “tirty-tree” that, doing Irish dancing, and Emmet told him to fuck off. And so they started mimicking the way he said that too, saying “You feck off, Paddy,” and I was trying to get them all to calm down, and I shoved one of them – not even hard, a push – but he thought Emmet had done it, and he lost it.

‘They all started punching each other. I tried to stop them. I even thought it was a bit of a joke at first. But then one of the other guys, not Emmet, picked up a bottle from the ground and he smashed it against the wall. And he hit Emmet with it, and Emmet went down.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Olivia said. ‘Oh, God. Oh, Jeannie.’

‘The other guys ran off. They were never caught. I was screaming, asking for someone to call an ambulance. There was blood everywhere, I thought they’d taken his eye out. It was horrible.’ An ambulance came, followed by the police. She was taken away in the police car to be checked out in the emergency department too, even though she insisted she hadn’t been touched, that Emmet had been protecting her, that he’d been hurt because of her.

‘They gave me something, I think, to calm me down. I was hysterical by then.’