He glanced at Nina. Her hands were stretched out on the table, her fingers taut with tension. He wanted to reach out and touch one of those hands. He wanted to stroke her long fingers, with their shiny red nails. And yet he sat there, his head filled with irritations and grievances. When Tess returned from the bar, there was every danger their bickering would resume. It was funny, he thought, people spoke about the difficulty of understanding others. Half of the time, Tom didn’t even understand himself.

There was a pattern to the parties that summer. Hordes of young Irish people gathered in houses with English beer and American music and tried to be smarter, funnier and wilder than they’d been at home. Half of them were students, playing at being grown-ups for a month or two. Others had made a permanent move. For many, going to London was an ambition and achievement in itself; how they made their living was irrelevant. They told stories about friends who’d moved into a squat in Peckham. They talked about buzzing on speed and tripping on acid, about the play they wanted to write or the band they were going to form. And, as they spoke, almost every word was exaggerated. ‘Heeey,’ they’d say. ‘How arrre yooou?’

The party near Goldhawk Road was no different. Tom was several beers in and feeling mellow. He was at one with the universe, a man enjoying his Saturday night. The alcohol had helped, as had a reminder from Nina that this was Conor’s weekend away. ‘He deserves to have a good time,’ she’d said.

Tom sat on the floor of the front room, watching the dancing. Tess, Nina and Conor were flinging their arms around and swaying their hips. Tess managed to smoke while she moved. Conor looked slightly earnest, like he always did. Nina sang along to the music. One of the thin straps on her top kept slipping from her shoulder. The drums and bass thrummed, the guitar jangled, and everything felt better.

When the pubs closed, more people arrived. Some had been invited, others had got the word from a friend of a friend, more heard the noise and wandered in.

In the kitchen, a crowd was singing. Tom liked how singing stripped away all the faux-sophistication. At the start of the evening, everybody had been poised and cool. Now they were pink-faced and beer-stained, roaring out the only songs they knew: ‘The Black Velvet Band’ and ‘Spancil Hill’, ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin’ and the first verse of ‘Dirty Old Town’. They mightn’t like to admit it, but they weren’t that different from the old lads who drank in The Sheaf of Wheat.