I want Steve to talk. I’m feeling for any difference in him: the distance he keeps from me, the angle of his head, the tone of his voice. The reason I don’t tell people about my father, apart from the fact that it’s none of their business, is that they hear the story and move me in their minds, either to the box marked Ahhh poor pet or to the box marked Skanger. Steve grew up a lot like I did – probably he was a little posher, lived in a council house instead of a council flat and had a da with a job and a ma who put those lace things on the back of the sofa, but he would have been in school with plenty of kids who didn’t know their daddies. I’m not worried about him getting snobby on me. But Steve is a romantic; he likes his stories artistic, with loads of high drama, a predictable pattern, and a pretty finish with all the loose ends tied up. I wouldn’t put it past him to imagine me as the tragic abandoned child fighting her way through her demons to a better life, and if he does I’m gonna have to smack him across the head.

He’s not throwing me gooey looks, at least, or walking closer to support me through my pain. All I can tell, out of the corner of my eye, is that he’s thinking hard. After a while he says, ‘What if she found him?’

‘What’re you on about?’ The relief makes me sound snotty.

‘The secret guy Aislinn kept ditching Lucy for. The guy in the pub.’ Steve goes round to his side of the car and leans on the roof while I dig for my keys. ‘What if it wasn’t a boyfriend, after all? What if it was her dad? She tracks him down, they’re trying to rebuild their relationship—’

‘Ah, Jaysus. That does it.’ I want to floor it all the way to Rory Fallon’s gaff and arrest the hell out of him, before it can turn out that Aislinn was having heartwarming reunion rendezvous with Daddy and I have to listen to all the syrupy details. ‘That’s four quid you owe me. No’ – when Steve grins – ‘I’m gonna lose my bleeding mind if I have to put up with this if shite any longer. I don’t even want to think about Aislinn’s da until Gary rings back and gives us the actual story. Meanwhile, you’re not getting into this car till you give me my four quid.’

I jingle the keys and stare him out of it till he reaches into his pocket and shoves a fiver across the roof of the car. ‘Where’s my change?’ he demands, when I pocket the fiver and unlock the doors.