The car park was full. Under the round window that was supposed to look like a porthole, the anchor that was attached to the wall had rusted where the black paint had peeled away.

Inside, dust was suspended in tobacco smoke, glittering. The stained glass in the long window on the west-facing wall was throwing gaudy shapes around the room. In the sunlight, the wood was dull with layered polish and the upholstery was shiny from spills and the rub of backsides. The old mirrors advertising bygone distilleries were bleary. The cleaning was supposed to be Gina’s department. The room had the creeping decrepitude that lingered about her, with her too-long nails and bleeding lipstick. She used to come in on a Monday with rubber gloves and a housecoat. Cushla couldn’t remember the last time she had. Eamonn could have reminded Gina, but Cushla suspected he didn’t want her around.

There was horse-racing on the television, men gaping at the screen, tension in the set of their shoulders. As the winner passed the post, a tiny man with a purple nose leapt from his bar stool and shouted ‘yeow’. Leslie crumpled a beaten docket and tossed it into the ashtray. On Saturday afternoons, Cushla’s father would sit her at the counter with an orangeade and get her to put the invoices in alphabetical order. Now her mother was behind the bar; she was meant to be working, but when a customer tried to order from her she smiled beatifically and took a sip of her gin.

Has she been on the gargle all day? Cushla asked Eamonn, who was at the end of the counter, as far away from Gina as possible.

That’s her second one.

She must have had something before she left the house.

Fuck’s sake, he said. I don’t know what she had but she’s neither use nor ornament in here.

Cushla looked at her mother. She was still ornament. Still pretty, with her wrinkles blurred by cigarette smoke, her skin softened by the low light. Don’t be horrible, she said. She went to Gina and kissed her cheek, laying the things she had bought in town on the shelf, the bag from the bookshop on top.

How was town? said Gina.

Wet. It took ages to get through the security. They made everyone open their umbrellas.

Dear God. What sort of being would put a bomb in an umbrella?

Cushla began taking down the dust-furred toby jugs, the ceramic Black & White dogs. She filled the sink with soapy water and lowered the knick-knacks in. She took down the liqueurs no one ever ordered. Advocaat with its crusty yellow neck. Galliano that smelled like ice cream. Green chartreuse in a square-sided bottle that doubled as an ashtray; there was a black smudge where someone had ground a cigarette. Probably Gina.

That anchor needs a lick of paint, Cushla told Eamonn.

Least of my worries, he said.

She washed and dried and buffed, wiped the shelves, put back the now sparkling tat. She was reaching up to replace a cardboard Babycham fawn when her mother slid off the stool and stepped towards the counter.