Assuming something had happened to his friend, Tom tried to sound patient. ‘I’m under a wee bit of pressure here,’ he said. ‘We’re never quiet for long.’

‘Grand, I hear you.’ Fergal pummelled his cheeks with the knuckles of both hands. Then he came out with it. He’d seen Nina with another guy. They’d been in Rathmines, coming out of the Stella cinema. The man was tall and looked full of himself. ‘You know the type.’

Tom stared at a box of Mars bars, reading and re-reading the advertising slogan. He instructed himself to concentrate on what Fergal was saying, but his brain was trying to shut down.

‘Nina’s at work,’ he said. ‘They started back on Monday. She’s teaching second class this year. You couldn’t have seen her in Rathmines.’

Fergal examined the blue lino floor. ‘I saw them a week ago. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Trying to figure out what to do, you know?’

‘How can you be sure it was her?’

‘We spent a summer in the same flat, Tom. It was definitely her.’

‘And the guy, could he have been – oh, I don’t know – a friend, a work colleague, somebody she’d bumped into?’

‘He wasn’t a friend.’ Fergal’s voice carried a world of information, and Tom decided he didn’t want to hear any more. His initial impulse was to shut the shop, go back to the house and wait. Staying was easier. He did the job by rote, selling groceries, newspapers and cigarettes, exchanging insults with young lads, forecasting the weather with old women. At six, Val arrived and told him to get off home.

‘And don’t worry about opening up in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’ll do that. The funeral was a week ago. It’s about time I got back into my routine.’

Usually, Tom got the bus to Ringsend. Tonight he chose to walk; he needed to walk. He threaded his way along O’Connell Street, around the queue at the Savoy cinema, past the doughnut kiosk and over the bridge. He nodded at the man selling bootleg cassettes and gave a few coppers to a woman begging for change. At the end of Westmoreland Street, he turned left, all the while running Fergal’s words around his head. He tried pretending that his friend had got it wrong. That he was mistaken. Confused. Lying. But the more Tom reflected on what he’d heard, the more certain he became that Nina was seeing someone else.