He came carrying a tray of art deco china.

Who is Siobhán de Buitléar? she said.

He glanced at her hands as he laid down the tray. I’ve been swotting up, he said, as though he hadn’t heard her, handing her a foolscap notebook. I have to stop every few words to look things up.

She put the book face down on her lap. On the jotter he’d written the word dúil and below it ‘desire, liking, fondness, craving. Yearning? Want? Like saudade, maybe?’

What’s saudade?

Soh-dadge, he said. It’s a Portuguese word, like dúil, I think.

You’d make a good teacher, she said. I don’t feel like I’ve just been corrected.

He poured, added milk, stirred. The cup handle was flat and triangular and she had to hold it daintily to get the tea to her mouth. He left the room. She could hear water running, the toilet flushing, the open and shut of a drawer. She picked up the book again and looked at the signature in English. The ‘r’s were fussy, like miniature capitals; it was how the nuns at school from down south had made the letter. She wondered about the girl with the careful hand who had once owned it.

She got up and walked around. The drawing of High Street he had told her about was on the wall above the record player. She had visualised little boats, but they were sailing ships. On top of a glass-fronted cabinet bunged with crystal and old Belleek china there was a photograph of a group of boys in shorts and rugby jerseys. She found Michael at once, amongst the tallest, his arms folded.

He returned with tidy hair, wearing an Aran cardigan. You’re like one of the Clancy Brothers in that thing, said Cushla.

I thought you’d appreciate that, he said. He was behind her, his arms around her waist.

And you are absolutely delighted with yourself here, she said, putting her finger under his chin in the photo.

I rather threw myself at sport that season, he said. Otherwise it was a dreadful year.

What was so bad about it?

A boy in my dorm hanged himself. At the start of the term.

Jesus Christ.

We stood at the end of our beds as they carried his body away. We were not allowed to go home. The school overlooked our back garden and for weeks I watched my sister play with our dog, and counted the sleeps until half-term. There were forty-three, by the way. Sleeps.