I watched him shake them off. His school uniform was ripped down one knee and there was dirt on his face.

‘Who is he?’ asked Ronan Harper.

‘This is her son. Brian.’

‘Well you saved your Mammy’s life, boy. Christ you’re a hero.’

He still hadn’t spoken. Was still staring.

I heard my own voice. ‘Brian. Why aren’t you at school?’

Then Harper was laughing; a loud, pleasant sound. ‘Jesus aint that like a mammy? Almost squashed flat and saved by her own lad and first thing is a telling off for bunking off. Jesus, wait until I tell the wife.’

Cordelia loomed over me, face full of concern. ‘Felicity. God you nearly killed me. I thought …’

‘I’m fine,’ I mumbled, embarrassed. ‘Fine.’

‘You’re bleeding.’ I was amazed to see tears in her eyes.

‘It’s nowt. Get me up, it’s soaking.’

Between them they levered me upright. My left leg was sore and it hurt when I put weight on my hip but somehow the pain wasn’t important. I hobbled to Brian. He was standing there, face a little moon against the dark of his jacket and the gloomy sky. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to look into his eyes and ask a thousand questions but people were looking and I felt so silly and tattered that all I could do was pat him, vaguely, on the shoulder and mutter something about the state of his shoes. It would be different nowadays. We’d have cried and hugged and had a big long talk about meaning everything to each other. But you didn’t do that then. It wasn’t the way we behaved.

‘I reckon you’ll be getting out of doing the washing up tonight,’ said Harper, grinning at Brian. He didn’t return it. Just stood there, staring off into the distance.

Harper checked me over again. I hadn’t been this close to another man who wasn’t family. He smelled different to John; all aftershave and onions. He was bigger than John too. Big square face with deep lines and fleshy lips and skin the colour of wet sand. Brown eyes and two days of beard.

‘This is your place, yes?’ he asked, pointing over the road to my house. ‘Shall we get you in? Get the kettle on? My lad will sort out the mess, ain’t that right, Sean?’

A smaller version of Harper appeared beside him; a copy of his father but washed on too high a heat. He had a bright smile. Might have been twenty but no more than that. It took him an effort to take his eyes off Cordelia, I remember that. Even now, I remember feeling a bit slighted that even in the midst of all that chaos, a young lad found the time to look at her and like what he saw.