In the church, when the coffin entered, six tall men carried it on their shoulders. Mr Crowley and Ronan were at the front and Barry at the back, and he didn’t recognise the other men, but they all had black hair like Colette. The coffin must have been very heavy because it pressed down on their shoulders so the material of their black suits bunched up. Carl’s daddy looked different. He’d always looked older than the other fathers of children in his class, but now he looked ancient, every line and crease in his face visible like he’d been dusted in chalk. And then Carl came into view, following behind, wearing a black suit with a white shirt and black tie, the same as the men who were carrying the coffin. But the sleeves of Carl’s shirt were too long and the collar so big that you couldn’t see his neck. He thought of the fight they’d had in the schoolyard. There was the same look of shock on Carl’s face now. His cheeks were damp with tears and there were two red circles around his eyes. Carl was walking beside Mrs Diver, but when they got to the top of the church, she left Carl with his father and his brothers and sat a few seats behind. The rows filled up with more people – really, he’d never seen the church so full, not even at Christmas – and he lost sight of Carl.

While the new priest said the mass, Niall looked at the pamphlet printed for the service. There was a black-and-white photo of Colette on the front. In the photo she wasn’t smiling, which was strange, because she was always smiling when you saw her. She looked happy though, wide-eyed, staring directly at the camera, her hair trailing back and away from her face like it was blowing in the wind. And her skin looked very bright like her face had absorbed all the light around her. And two of her poems were printed on the middle pages of the pamphlet. One was called ‘Testament’ and it was kind of like a prayer – the language was very plain and at the end of each verse there was a repeated line like when they did the responsorial psalm. But the other poem was different, it didn’t rhyme and there were no verses, just a long list of lines down the page, and if it hadn’t been called ‘Mothering’, Niall would never have guessed what the poem was about, because they were frightening, the things she promised to do to protect her children, and they were promises you could never keep.

When the priest spoke about Colette, he started by saying, ‘I never had the good fortune to meet Colette Crowley but . . .’ and then he went on to talk about her for what felt like a very long time, saying things that other people had told him, and Niall’s mother began to sigh like she did when they waited at the doctor’s or the dentist. But when the priest finished, he said, ‘And now Barry Crowley will read a poem for us.’ But Barry just bowed his head and sat there. Ronan turned to him and said something into his ear and Barry shouted ‘No’ with such force that his long hair leapt on his head, and the noise of his shout echoed through the church. Niall heard his mother tut. On Barry’s other side his father turned to him and placed a hand on his shoulder but his whole body jolted and his father pulled away like he’d been shocked. Barry passed a piece of paper to Ronan, who approached the altar. He moved quickly, stood tall, an apology in his smile. He spoke about the poem he was about to read, and what it had meant to his mother. It was like he was trying to make them all feel better after the boring things the priest had said about Colette. And when he started to read the poem, Niall turned the page of the pamphlet and saw that it was printed there. ‘Dirge Without Music’ by somebody called Edna St. Vincent Millay. He wasn’t sure what a dirge was but it sounded depressing, and the last verse began, ‘Down, down, down’, and that was how the poem made him feel, like he was being pulled under by the words. And there were a couple of lines that kept repeating and at the end they were repeated together: ‘But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.’ But when Ronan reached these words, he wasn’t smiling anymore. He wasn’t looking out at the faces of the people in the church as he had been. He just stood there for a while, as if he was unable to move, unable to stop himself from staring down at the page. But every face in the church was lifted to him. And when Niall looked up at his mother, he could see her pulse beating in the curve of her throat, like her heart was caught there.

The end of the mass came and the priest said, ‘And now the Ardglas Choral Society will sing for us.’ The song was in Irish and Niall couldn’t understand every word, but there was something about the sea, and the way it made him feel was like a warm current running through him, and even though it was sad there was something hopeful about it. Everyone stood very still, listening through the first verse, until the men at the front of the church moved to lift the coffin. When Carl passed by him again, filing out of the church, Niall tried to catch his eye but Carl just stared ahead the whole time.

Walking behind the hearse, Niall watched Carl’s head move in and out of view at the front of the crowd. He was determined to walk up to Carl and say something before the end of the funeral. Losing your mother was the worst thing that could happen, and if Niall wanted to make himself cry, he just had to imagine his mother dying. He thought that perhaps Carl might be nicer now and that things could be different between them, or at least more like they were before. But as soon as they reached the graveyard, the procession spread out around the mouth of the grave and he lost sight of Carl. His mother was still holding one of the pamphlets from the church and he slipped it from her hand.

The priest started to say something but Niall couldn’t make out any of it because he was too far away. He tried to catch a glimpse of Carl when some of the people blocking his view moved apart, but then there was a lot of movement because someone was coming through the crowd. People were making a great effort to spread apart from each other, and into the space they made stepped Donal Mullen.

‘Jesus Christ,’ his mother whispered, and when he glanced at her, he saw the muscles in her cheeks ripple as she clenched her jaw. And even though she didn’t move, his father put his arm out in front of her, like she was about to bolt away.

And people continued to edge farther from Mr Mullen and the space around him grew so it was like he was surrounded, like he was the centre of the scene and not the people standing at the grave who Niall could now see through the gap in the crowd – Carl, then his brothers, then his father, all lined up in order of size, staring down into the mouth of the grave in their matching suits, like paper cutouts joined at the elbow.

The pamphlet dropped from Niall’s hand and blew across the grass, stopping near Mr Mullen’s feet.

Niall took one step forward and he felt his father’s hand fall heavy on his shoulder.

‘Stay where you are, Niall,’ his father said.

But he wanted to take Colette’s poems home so he could read them in bed that night, and his gaze kept drifting back to the pamphlet. And when he looked up, Mr Mullen was staring over his shoulder at them, his eyes dark and shining, like the black glass in his mother’s brooch.

His mother dug her knuckle into his shoulder and he felt her breath on the side of his face. ‘Stop staring,’ she whispered. ‘And for the love of God stop pulling at your hair.’ Niall took down his hand and there were a few strands between his thumb and forefinger.

The priest raised his arm and made a blessing in the air as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Each of the Crowley brothers dropped a single white rose into the grave.

‘Take me home,’ his mother said.

‘Will we not go to the hotel for the meal? Shaun invited us,’ his father said.

‘I will not be anywhere there’s a chance of running into that man again.’

‘Ah, come on – he’s not going to show up at the afters. He wouldn’t have the nerve.’

‘He’s here, isn’t he?’

And with that his mother headed off in the direction of the gates, his father following behind. Niall retrieved the pamphlet from the grass, the pages so wet now, the image of Colette was almost washed away. Looking up, he saw the mouth of the grave covered by planks of wood draped in green felt, the wreaths piled on in one great colourful mound.

*  *  *

Dolores lay on the sofa, her rosary wound tightly round her fist. With each whispered prayer she eased a bead between thumb and knuckle. The repetition of these words, the trance they placed her in, was the only release she could find. She was capable of sleeping and eating when the child inside her demanded it. She was able to take care of her children, to smile when required and tell them everything was going to be OK. But the moment she was alone a panic flooded through her, so pervasive, the only thing she could do was lie down before it.

‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art though amongst women . . .’

The sweep of tyres on the drive, the noise of a car door slamming shut. The rustle of keys followed by her husband’s footsteps moving softly, carefully through the house.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, ‘when you pull up outside every curtain in the place is closed. How do you think that looks? It’s not us who’s having the funeral.’ He marched to the window and dashed the curtains apart.

‘Don’t,’ she shouted.

He turned, fixed her with a look. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘We need to talk.’

‘Where are the kids?’

‘I left them down with Mammy.’

His eyes rested on the rosary beads in her hand. ‘Ah Jesus, Dolores.’ He came and sat beside her, leaving space between their bodies. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped. ‘It would’ve suited you better to be at the funeral than sitting around here saying the rosary.’

‘What was it like?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The graveyard – how was it?’

‘Oh, it was packed, the whole—’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no, no. Stop. Please. I don’t want to know.’

His head turned slowly. She could feel his eyes examining her. ‘You need to start pulling yourself together.’ His voice was soft, controlled. ‘We need to look like we have nothing to hide, and you lying here with the curtains pulled in the middle of the day will make people think—’

‘I know what people are thinking, Donal.’

‘And you know what can happen when rumours get out of hand, all it will take is for us to be questioned again and you may forget it – that’s it. I’ve lost one job already this week and there won’t be much more work coming in until this all blows over. We can’t afford this with another child on the way.’

‘Donal?’

‘But people have short memories when it suits them – all we have to do is ride this out.’

‘Donal?’ She watched him grow very still. ‘Did you set that fire?’

After fourteen years of marriage it was still extraordinary to her how he continued to find new ways of being silent.

‘Donal? I need to hear you say it.’

‘The less you know, the better.’

‘Donal, I’ve already lied to the Guards for you. It’s too late to protect me now.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘This looks bad for both of us. But it doesn’t matter as long as we stick to the same story – I was in the pub, a few will have seen me there – and when I came home, we watched a bit of telly and went to bed. If they start asking more questions, we can tell them half the men in the town were going up there for a good time. It wouldn’t be far from the truth. But for now we’ll just keep saying how much she was drinking, that she was smoking up in the cottage, that she was behaving erratically.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ she said, ‘you’ve really thought this through.’

‘This all needs to look like some kind of accident if we’re going to get the insurance money, but there’s a chance it’s covered for criminal damage as well, I’d need to look at the policy.’

‘The insurance!’ she shouted. ‘The insurance!’ She landed two blows with her closed fists square on his head before he had time to put his arms up. She felt the beads crunch against his skull. ‘The fucking insurance.’ She continued to pummel him as he cowered and shouted. ‘We could lose everything, Donal, and you’re worried about the insurance?’