How do you know that? said Cushla. Her voice was hoarse.

Oh, it’s no secret. Would you blame her? Sure he’s gorgeous.

Cushla felt as though she had been thrown on to the road. At the gate she turned left, the wrong direction, towards the mountains. Along the promenade, children were licking ice creams, blowing on chips, mothers and fathers dandering behind them.

Fond of the women. Cushla knew he’d had other affairs. The dry way Penny said How do you know each other? in the Lyric. The mild amusement with which his other friends accepted her, when they should have been scandalised. Marjorie. It seemed now he had been directing things. Showing her where he lived after one month, giving her his number after two, a key after three. Leaving her waiting for days on end then reappearing, reeling her back with a trip to Dublin, an afternoon in his flat. An hour in his car, fucking her until she couldn’t think straight. She disliked that she was not the first, but the dawning knowledge that she wouldn’t be the last was killing her. As for Joanna. How seldom the woman had entered her head. She’d been an irritant, that was all. It had suited Cushla to think of her as unattractive and slovenly, to believe Michael was stuck in a miserable marriage, unable to leave his fuck-up of a wife.

The phone rang at seven. Gina pressed her hands to the arms of the chair but left her bum on the seat. Cushla got up to answer it, pulling the door closed before lifting the receiver.

How’s Mummy? said Eamonn.

How do you think?

She can’t stand Marian’s family, so I never thought of asking youse.

It doesn’t matter.

It does. Daddy would be disgusted.

Daddy’s gone, Eamonn.

You need to get away from her, he said. Join the circus. Leave the country. Get married.

Who do you suggest I marry?

I don’t know. That teacher with the red neb? He was trying to make her laugh, but a sob had come up from her stomach. She waited for it to pass. Are you still there? he said.

Yeah. Look, it’ll be OK. I’ll talk to her.

When she went into the sitting room, Gina’s eyes were glittering. Michael and Joanna will know we were at separate tables, she said.