I don’t want to leave you on your own.

I’ll be fine now.

OK then. Give me a ring if you’ve a problem, he said, and then he was gone.

Michael lit a cigarette and blew the smoke down his nose. Throw another in there please, he said, sliding his glass at her.

She glanced in the mirror as she was pouring his drink. He was watching her. She was emboldened by having her back to him and didn’t look away.

She put the whiskey on the counter. Cushla, isn’t it? I’m Michael. Would you like one yourself? he said, closing his fingers around the tumbler. The room looked better with him in it. Behind him, the shabby lanterns that were fixed to the walls were casting circles of warm light on the teak tables, and there was a squalid opulence about the jade-green tweed that upholstered the banquettes and stools.

I’m teaching in the morning. Thanks, but, she said.

Where do you teach? he said. It was one of those questions that people asked when they wanted to know what foot you kicked with. What’s your name? What’s your surname? Where did you go to school? Where do you live?

I teach P3s in St Dallan’s.

So the children are seven or eight? That’s a nice age.

It is, she said. I had P1s for the first two years. Spent most of my time bringing them in and out to the toilet.

You brought the children to get ashes this morning, he said.

He must have seen her removing them. Eamonn’s irritation with her. Yeah, she said.

I lived in Dublin in my youth, he told her. It’s wall-to-wall Catholics down there, you know. It was said lightly, but he was looking at her so keenly it was a relief when he took his eyes from hers and drank.

I got ashes this morning myself, said Jimmy O’Kane in a loud whisper.

You made a better job of getting rid of them than I did, said Cushla.

A wee taste of Lifebuoy on a dishcloth, said the old man.

Cushla glanced at Michael. His eyes were creased in amusement.

She made a cup of tea and pulled the stool around to face the television. A drama had come on. Helen Mirren was lying on a settee stroking a white cat, while her husband was confronting Malcolm McDowell about sleeping with her. Cushla didn’t know why she would go next or near McDowell, who was skinny and cruel-looking and wearing a prissy blue jumper, when she was married to Alan Bates, who was thickset and brooding. Helen Mirren got up and walked around the room. She was wearing a white shirtwaister. She looked classy. Cushla had on a pink cheesecloth shirt and jeans with a patch that said ‘Push My Panic Button’ sewn on one of the back pockets.

Jimmy finished his pint, bottom lip working at the rim to catch every drop, and, patting his breast pocket gently, shuffled out the door.