Fidel crouched in front of Davy, stroking his beard. Davy’s head was down and he began rearranging things in her basket, as if he was looking for something. Fidel straightened himself. He seemed put out. Cushla hadn’t told the McGeowns where the Creme Eggs had come from and wondered now if Fidel expected the boy to thank him.

How are you fixed for sixty-odd ice creams in a couple of hours? said Cushla.

Sticking out. I’ll get my mummy to help me.

Did Cushla fancy Michael because he was the only man she knew who didn’t talk incessantly about his mummy?

Further along the street, the butcher waved a cleaver at her. The baker put a basket of scones in the window and raised his floury hat.

All that’s missing is the candlestick maker, said Gerry, who had hung back. He inclined his head at the giant tin cone. Friend of yours?

Customer. He’s not the worst, she said.

A rubber ball bounced on to the road and Gerry roared at the children to stop, afraid its owner would charge into the path of an oncoming car to retrieve it. He hurried to the front of the line.

Near the end of the street there was a statue that had been erected in the fifties in memory of a local child who had been knocked down and killed. It was a skinny figure of a boy, naked except for a pair of wrinkled shorts, a concertina stretched between his hands, the pleats wide open. His knees were clinging to the plinth, his head inclined to the side as if he was listening.

Is that what he looked like? The boy who died? said Davy.

I don’t know, said Cushla. I think the artist made something that would remind us of all wee boys. The impish look he has on his face, as if he shouldn’t be up there.

Davy said he wanted to see what the boy could see. She took the basket from him and put her hand on his back as he clambered up the rock. He wrapped his legs around the bronze waist and leaned so they were at eye level. He told her he could see the footpath, low-down where children walked, that maybe the woman wanted him to have company. Cushla had brought a camera. She asked Davy if she could take a picture. He said he didn’t feel much like smiling but she could snap away. She took three and helped him down.

At the ruin of the priory, he stopped. Were the monks Catholics or Protestants? he said.

It was built a long time ago, before there was such a thing as Catholics or Protestants.

The good old days, he said. She laughed and he said it again.