I jumped the fence and headed for Val Donnellan’s front door. Cats, everywhere, including a big tabby with a missing eye where Ernie had thrown a rock at it. Gravel, part desiccated weed mat, two narrow tracks where David came and went every morning and afternoon. The porch where me and Jen had tackled Hamlet. Peter Donnellan was up a ladder, covering a fruitless mandarin tree with a net, itself full of holes. ‘Hey,’ I called, and he replied, ‘Hello to you, Clem.’ The lawyer in search of plump mandies, and other things. His Catweazle beard and Christ-like hair tied up with a band; his Vinnies pants and dad’s old work shirt. A budget sage, in the shade of his own ambitions.

I knocked and heard Val calling, ‘Someone get that.’

I waited, and waited. Then the door opened, and Val stood smiling. ‘Clem. What cha got there?’

‘A cake. Mum made it for you. Said she had too much mixture.’

But it was never too much mixture. If you were making one you might as well make two. I handed it over and stood back, trying to think of an excuse.

‘Come in for a cuppa?’

‘She wants me to help Pop.’

But that never worked. So, a few minutes later I was sitting in her kitchen—more Jesus, more melamine—waiting for the kettle to boil.

‘White with two, wasn’t it?’ she said. Apparently she still couldn’t remember. More likely, it was part of the routine, the tea ceremony: the warming of the cup, the clockwise stirrings of the pot, the drawing-out of conversation. I watched her old hand with its tremor (although she never spilt the tea). The spot where the pot went; the same chipped plate for the biscuits; the same biscuits; the Cornish Seascapes tablecloth with its permanent stains. ‘School soon?’

‘Next week.’

‘Looking forward to it?’

‘Yes.’ Just in case it got back to Mum.

‘Fay says you got a good brain.’

She’d been saying that for years, despite increasing evidence to the contrary. I’d been clever in primary school; made beautiful macaroni murals, had a spotless speed and accuracy record, and what was true then was true now.

‘David left with honours,’ she said, looking across at her son.

He just nodded and smiled and jiggled a bit so the wheels on his chair scraped on the lino floor.

‘He used to study all night … all hours. You were determined, weren’t you, darling?’

David twisted his head. You could see how the muscles wanted to do one thing, him another. He strained, released, but managed to look me in the eyes. ‘Go over everything, twice, thrice,’ he said. ‘I can help.’

‘That’d be good.’

Val was admiring her damaged son; her scrunched-up boy-man. She was beaming, proud of the second lawyer in the family. The degrees hung in the hallway, close to her second Jesus. Yellow parchments with crests and copperplate signatures proclaiming Peter and David Donnellan bachelors of law, 1969. David, still waiting for his first case; Peter, doing what he needed to do to be called a lawyer, although everyone agreed, he was no Perry Mason.