Cushla leaned over her mother and kissed her cheek, taking in her sad scents. Je Reviens and cigarettes. Setting lotion and gin.

My head’s like a sieve, said Davy.

He crammed a rectangle of dry biscuit into his mouth. Cushla poured him a glass of milk and he dunked the remaining piece. How the other half live, he said. He said it a second time because he made her laugh.

Morning was struggling through a seam of low, grey cloud.

Enough of that, now. Does anyone have any happy news? Davy rose again. My da got a job, he said. He looked about him for approval, but the others weren’t listening. Running about with no clothes on, one of the boys was saying. In the nude. Cushla pulled their exercise books towards her and called the children up alphabetically by first name.

Butter’s bad for you, said Cushla. It’s so dry I’m more likely to choke to death than have a stroke,

a manufactured musk so thick Cushla could almost see it.

The sky was heavy with the threat of rain.

Her mother’s cough woke her, a treacly hack that made Cushla feel sick.