I’m not sure how, but somehow I found myself sitting next to Catherine. We were side by side, shoulders and upper arms touching, legs drawn up. I could feel her warmth through her jumper, and I could have breathed in the smell of her for ever. I have no idea what that scent was. But it always hung around her. Faintly aromatic. I suppose it must have been a perfume of some kind, or the soap she used. Perhaps something sent by her aunt. It was always arousing.

I was already heady from the beer, and finding courage I never knew I had. I slipped my arm around her shoulder, and she leaned in against me.

“What happened to your folks?” I said. It was a question we hardly ever asked. We were never encouraged to dwell on the past. She took a long time to answer.

“My mum died.”

“And your dad?”

“It didn’t take him long to find someone else. Someone who would give him children, like a good Catholic. My mum had complications when I was born and couldn’t have any more kids.”

I was confused. “I don’t understand. Why aren’t you still at home?”

“She didn’t want me.”

I heard the pain in her voice, and felt it too. It was one thing to lose your parents to death, it was another to be turned away, unwanted. Especially by your own father. I sneaked a glance at her, and was shocked to see silvered tears run down her cheeks in the moonlight. Wee, tough Catherine. The arousal I’d felt earlier dissipated, and all I really wanted to do was hold her, and comfort her, so that she would know she was wanted by someone.

Which was when I became aware of a commotion on the far side of the skylight. Someone had taken Peter’s bottle of beer off him, unopened, and several of the boys were throwing it from one to the other, tantalising him, making him run around in dizzying circles trying to catch it. It seemed that Alex Curry was the ringleader, bating and taunting, encouraging the others. Everyone knew Peter wasn’t quite the full shilling, and without me to stand up for him he was an easy target.

Of course, I was no physical match for Alex Curry, but I had the mental strength to stand up to anyone when it came to Peter. I had promised my mother, and I wasn’t about to renege on that.

I stood up immediately. “Oi!” I almost shouted, and immediately everyone went quiet. The bottle-throwing stopped, and one or two voices shushed me in the still night air. “Fucking leave off,” I said, sounding much braver than I felt.

“You and whose army’s going to make me?”

“I don’t need an army to kick your arse, Curry.”