The gigantic tin 99 that normally stood on the kerb outside Fidel’s mother’s shop was bulging from its doorway. There was a light on upstairs, a couple of figures at the window.

There’s a ‘No Surrender’ meeting going on up there, she said, pointing at the first floor. Pity it’s clashing with your Irish night.

He had stopped at a pelican crossing. She could sense his head turn very slowly and began to panic that she had gone too far. Their eyes met. He burst out laughing.

Past vast aircraft hangars, the hulking bent heads of the yellow cranes in the shipyard, the hoppy smell from the animal-feed factory beyond the docks seeping into the car as they crossed the Lagan. High Street was ahead of them. Another river runs beneath that street, he said. The city got its name from it. Béal Feirste, the mouth of the Farset. It flows through a tunnel under the road now. You can almost sense it, in the breadth and curve of the street, that it’s following a river’s course. I have a drawing from 1830. People in frock coats walking on the quays, a sailing boat docked beside them. Amazing, really.

His voice was so beautiful she felt as if she was being read to. But the way he said amazing, the second ‘a’ long and open. What was she doing in a car with this man, with his genteel accent and urbane manners? Something was rearing up in her and when they passed the City Hall she heard herself say: My mother comes from behind there. She was trying to tell him she was not like him, but he glanced at her, his face full of encouragement. It disarmed her, and she found herself telling him one of Gina’s stories from the war. A GI walked her home from a dance one night and she didn’t want him to see how small her house was. There was a light on at one of the upstairs windows on the east side of the City Hall and she stopped, saying: You can leave me here. Daddy’s still working in his study. Cushla had delivered the last part in Gina’s telephone voice.

Your mother’s a character, said Michael.

That’s one way of putting it, said Cushla.

He drove up a narrow street. It was blocked at the end by concrete bollards shaped like treasure chests. There was no space to do a three-point turn, no driveways to reverse into. He rested his arm across the back of her seat, turning his head to look out the rear window. A lock of her hair was trapped under his elbow and she felt a tug as he reversed all the way back down. Before he set off, he lifted the curl and laid it on her shoulder, looking at her for a moment.

They were on the Malone Road, passing the big house Cushla’s father had grown up in.

Did you visit your grandfather often? said Michael.