Those more fortunately placed had no such inhibitions. Mrs Coyne, the garage proprietor’s wife, gathered her eleven girls around her and took them to play on the sands. Sister Teresa Dolores and Sister Sullivan moved discreetly through the sunshine, their beads and crucifixes dangling, their habits rustling. Mr O’Hagan from the post office was seen on the seafront every Sunday evening; Finnamore Balt walked the length of the promenade every day. Guard Ryan and Willie Troy from Meath’s raced their bicycles on the damp sand in the early morning, and at that time of day also three priests went swimming. Father Pierce called out warnings about jellyfish or the lowness of the sea’s temperature, but his companions kept their voices quiet. They were older, pale-skinned men, the smaller of them with a head shaped like a bullet, a resemblance that was more noticeable when he was denuded of his black clothes. The head of the other was a tiny knob at the top of his white body and was more noticeable then also, like the head of a pin.

The Pierrots came to perform on the sands. Duffy’s Circus came and went, and then Toft’s Roundabouts and Bumper Cars attracted the visitors to the wasteland that might one day become the Father Ignatius Quirke Park. In Traynor’s Picture Palace tales of romance and gangsters and the Wild West unfolded nightly. In the Protestant church of St Boniface Canon Kinchella preached sermons that had become familiar to his congregation. In the Church of Our Lady the summer feast days were celebrated. ‘Take a gander at that, sir,’ invited Mr Coyne, drawing John James by the sleeve of his jacket into his garage. He pointed at a large vehicle with its roof folded down. Of French manufacture, he declared, owned in the past by a titled person. But John James replied that he had no money.

Eugene Prille, the solicitor’s clerk, found homes for both the solicitor’s maid and his white cat. Harbinson, the solicitor’s partner, agreed to be his best man. The dressmaker, Miss Laffey, completed the wedding dress that Villana had ordained should be simple. ‘I often see you alone,’ Brother Meagher accused Tom in South Main Street, i see you about, you’re never out with a gang. Mahoney and John Joe Reilly are boys of your own age. Why aren’t you out with them?’

He peered at Tom from beneath the eyebrows that met across his forehead, and Tom said to himself that Brother Meagher was already waiting for him behind the green railings of the Christian Brothers’. Already he was looking forward to the day when he could knock the badness out of him.

‘I don’t belong to a gang,’ Tom said, i’m saying that to you, boy.’

‘I go about alone.’

‘I’m saying that to you too. Are you stupid, boy?’