Cushla and Gerry were bringing their classes to the park for a picnic; next year they would have a proper school trip, a visit to the safari park on the north coast where the biggest attraction was a monkey that smoked Benson & Hedges. She checked that each child had a packed lunch. Davy came to her desk with his, peeling back the orange plastic lid. My mummy said I’m to make sure you see it, he said. It was crammed with expensive food marketed at children. Triangles of processed cheese. A Finger of Fudge. It was a message from Betty. I am coping, she was saying. And I don’t trust you any more.

Gerry’s pupils were already in the corridor, sunlight slanting from the open door of his classroom, the terrazzo floor showering the walls with tiny spangles. Cushla’s class filed out next. On the corner in front of the school they counted the children, instructing them to find a partner for the walk and hold their hand. The girls did as they were told. The boys winced in disgust, seven years old and muttering about looking like ‘pansies’. There was an odd number of children in Cushla’s class and an even number in Gerry’s. She found Davy and asked him to carry her basket, a sinecure invented to spare him being left alone.

He walked between Cushla and Gerry, switching the basket from one arm to another. The boys were in T-shirts, bony arms milk-white in the sunlight. The girls in summer frocks. Zoe in a pink jumpsuit and matching espadrilles. They set off towards the main street, hands clipping the school railings. On the corner, Paddy the caretaker was mowing the lawn of the parochial house into velvety stripes, Slattery standing on his doorstep, following the machine with his eyes.

He’s like something out of a Hammer Horror picture, said Gerry. And please don’t quote me on that, wee man.

Davy made a pincer of his hand and moved it across his mouth, as if he was zipping it closed.

Gerry went to the front of the line and led the children across the road, Cushla staying at the back with Davy. Without uniforms, there was a raggle-taggle look about them as they traipsed up High Street hand in hand. They wore their own clothes to protect them, but since all the other schools in town had regulation clothing, they were easily identifiable as Catholics. About ten feet ahead, Fidel stepped out of his shop. He lit a cigarette and watched the children process past him. How’s about you, Miss Lavery, he said.

Great. We’re going to the park for a picnic.