The line had clearly been annoying her. Through the rest of the cover class she sat, head lowered, her teeth worrying the skin at the side of her thumbnail as she scored out draft after draft of the poem. Finally, she sat up, staring at the far wall, then lowered her head and scribbled once more, closing the book just before the bell rang and Tony dismissed the class, standing at the doorway to collect in their work as they left the room.

‘See you, sir,’ Alice said as she passed him, the last to leave the room.

‘Did you get it finished?’

She nodded. ‘I’m going to write one for Mummy, too,’ she said.

Tony nodded his encouragement as she laid her book on top of the pile he held.

Before he left the room, he flicked through her exercise book to see her finished draft. Her handwriting was small, neat, her tailed letters contained, showing no signs of ostentation or showiness.

‘Daddy can be happy

And sometimes sad he’ll be.

Damaged by life and the

Death of his wife

Yet I know he loves me.’

‘Now, that is sad,’ Karen said, after he’d recited it to her. ‘You’re a good man, you know that? Despite being a tube.’

They’d reached Glasgow now and Tony wondered whether Karen would drop him off somewhere or suggest going back to hers. In the end, she did neither, instead asking him if he wanted to get something to eat. They went to O’Reilly’s, a traditional bar that incongruously only served pizza, and shared a pizza and a few drinks, before picking up a bottle of wine and a few cans from behind the bar and heading back to Karen’s.

Around eleven, Tony suggested he would head on home. He stood in the doorway, his coat over his arm.

‘Thanks for a good day,’ Karen said. ‘I’m glad things worked out.’

‘Me too,’ Tony said. ‘I feel like a proper grown-up now, dealing with an argument without throwing the head and walking away.’

Karen laughed lightly and standing on tiptoe, kissed him.

‘You can stay, if you like,’ she murmured, as he closed the door again and moved back into the hallway and into her room. They pulled the clothes off each other, not even bothering to turn on the light.

He lay on his back on her bed, the street lights from the road beyond blinking through the thin fabric of her curtains as she straddled him, felt the warmth of her, heard the catch in her breath, her hands gripping his shoulders, a faint blush rising along her throat and for the first time since he’d arrived in the country, he felt like he was home.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

‘So where is home for you, Richard?’ Karen asked Barr. ‘Derry or Galway?’

‘Derry, completely,’ Barr said.

‘Not Galway, with your mum?’