A man her own age was leaning on the counter. He had enormous, soulful grey eyes, the rest of his features squashed into a face broader than it was long. He asked her if she was here for the bride or the groom. Her name. Which school she had gone to. Where she lived.

Nice spot, he said. Quiet, like.

She didn’t say her family had a bar. He asked who Gerry was, how she knew him, and when she told him he took a slug of his pint and looked at the table thoughtfully.

Gerry got up to buy the next round. The man was still at the counter. Cushla watched him talk into Gerry’s ear, a pint in one hand, the other turning in the air, a gesture of insouciance. Gerry was looking at the floor, arms folded across himself, a finger on his lip. The leg going like mad.

Your face, she said, when he came back. Are you all right?

Did you tell your man to talk to me?

No. I told him you worked in the same school as me. What did he want?

He asked if he could send a couple of boys round to cement sherry trifles into the wall of my garage.

Sherry trifles?

It’s rhyming slang.

Rifles? Jesus. What did you say?

I said I don’t have a garage.

Cushla went to the ladies. Two of the bridesmaids were retouching their eyeshadow, giggling drunkenly.

Here, do you want a rub of this? one asked Cushla.

Aye, go on, she said, realising she was quite drunk too. ‘Seasons in the Sun’ came on and the girls shrieked and rushed out, leaving Cushla in front of the mirror. They had smeared her lids with a pearlescent tricolour.

Gerry said the sherry-trifle encounter had sobered him up, and he wasn’t in the mood for dancing. They left just before eight. At the bottom of the road, Cushla turned to him. Can you drop me somewhere? she said.

Within reason, he said, glancing at her.

She told him the address and he went via the city centre, a longer route, but safer than driving through the loyalist streets that bordered Michael’s area. When they got to the corner of Michael’s avenue, she said she wanted to get out. He protested, and turned left. He drove slowly, looking up at the tall houses.

My imagination’s working overtime, Lavery, he said, as he pulled in.

She kissed him on the cheek. Thanks.

She got out of the car and skeetered across the gravel, shoes in hand. The light was on in the front room. She went up the steps and took the brass key from her bag. She unlocked the door and pushed it open, holding a hand up at Gerry in farewell.