‘I don’t know when he’ll be having visitors,’ she said, ‘but if he wants anything, or if Flan and Ginny need a hand, well … I’m not far away. I only live in Ranelagh. I could be there in no time.’

‘If you’re around tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be here again,’ he said. Why am I doing this? he thought. ‘You could drop in. If it suited you, I mean.’

‘That would be great. I wouldn’t stay long, and I’d call first to make sure.’

‘Grand. I’d better …’

‘Yes, you go and do what you have to do. Oh, and Tom?’ said Nina.

‘Yeah?’

‘Happy birthday.’

Chapter 26

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ said Conor, who was propped up on a bank of pillows, ‘morphine is a serious disappointment.’

‘Is it not working?’ asked Tom. ‘If the pain is bad, can’t they increase the dose? I’ll give one of the nurses a shout.’

‘No, you’re fine. The pain has died down, right enough. The thing is, after years of watching addicts and thinking, These lads must be on to something, I finally get a good dose of opiates in my system, and what do they do for me? Nothing. You’d get more of a kick from a pint of shandy. Sorry, I tell a lie: I’ve got all the lousy side-effects. I feel sick, and every time I doze off, I get woeful nightmares.’ He gave a weak smile. ‘Chances are I would’ve had the nightmares anyway.’

Despite his jaunty words, Nina thought that Conor had a haunted look about him. In her experience, shock and injury made most people appear older, yet Conor looked like a frightened child. His face, pale at the best of times, was wan, while the red seemed to have leached from his hair. One arm and a shoulder were strapped up, and there was a gash on the side of his face.

They sat in an arc around the bed, Tess to the left, Tom to the right, Nina at its head. The room was tight on space, so everybody else – Sharon, Ginny, Flan, Paula and Lauren – had gone for a cup of tea. Nina hadn’t expected them all to be allowed in like this, but Conor had insisted. She felt like an intruder, a feeling exacerbated by the gallows banter of the other three. They were trading bad-taste quips in the way that only close friends can.

‘You do know that Tom was preparing his graveside oration?’ said Tess.

‘And that Tess had picked out her funeral frock?’ added Tom.

‘To be fair, I’ve always looked good in black.’