Tommy told me what they did to his father, said Cushla. She recounted his afflictions slowly, as Tommy had. Fractured skull. Both legs broken. Smashed jaw. Cracked ribs. Collapsed lung. Ruptured spleen. They slashed his hands and wrists with a nail hammered into a plank.

Gina stood shaking her head, as if she was trying to drive the words out. Keep an eye on those kids, she said eventually, especially that older fella. He’s at a bad age.

Cushla peeled potatoes and parsnips and carrots. She carried the skins outside in a basin. Their neighbour, Mr Reid, was in his garden. There was an apple tree strung with fatballs, the lawn blooming with drifts of snowdrops and crocuses; beds that would be bright with colour were turned over and ready for planting. The Laverys had a wan clutch of daffodils that came out sulking in spring and a single diseased rose bush. He wished her a happy Easter and took the trimmings for his compost heap, returning with a bunch of forced rhubarb wrapped in the Belfast News Letter.

Mrs Reid had died before the Laverys moved in. There were no children, just a nephew who had taken over the running of Mr Reid’s lemonade factory a few years earlier, a small man with a big car who seldom visited. Cushla almost asked Mr Reid to join them for lunch but couldn’t picture him at Gina’s table. It would be strained enough without the hardship of keeping the conversation neutral, avoiding religion, politics, the Troubles. Gina pretending to be sober. Eamonn trying not to curse.

Eamonn arrived half an hour late, a bottle of wine in each hand, Bull’s Blood and a sweet German white. His daughters, Emma and Nicola, ignored Gina’s outstretched arms and put their faces in their mother’s skirt. Gina watched, a smile on her mouth that hadn’t reached her eyes. They ripped open the eggs she gave them and began eating. Marian told them three times to say thanks before giving up and plopping into a chair.

Cushla plated the vegetables while Gina hacked at the meat.

We should do this more often, whispered Cushla.

Marian’s put on a quare lot of weight, said Gina.

You can’t help yourself, can you? said Cushla.

As they ate, the girls got on and off their seats, asking to be brought to the toilet, pulling faces at the food. Gina watched them, her neck and chest splotched red, the wine showing on her in a way the gin didn’t.

Anything strange or startling, Cushla? said Marian.

No.

Ha! said Gina. Apart from staying out all night.

Marian giggled. Who with?

A wee teacher, said Gina, willing to enter an alliance with her sworn enemy to humiliate her own daughter.

What’s going on? said Eamonn, looking up sharply.

Nothing, said Cushla.

There’d better not be, he said. What about your job?