You and Daddy’ll have to come up to Dublin and look at the new place Mam,” says Jennifer.

Himself is NOT interested.

“I’m not going up there to be insulted. Send me a bit of wedding cake, seeing as that’s the way things are heading.”

Oh, I hope he’s wrong. It’s bad enough that Declan doesn’t get on with Himself. Not that Declan knows anything about it. He was just speaking his mind about Himself’s coin collection, but he might as well have been poking a cat with a stick. It’ll never be forgotten now. But it isn’t just that – it’s Declan. There’s something about him. Or more like there’s nothing about him. He’s not Jennifer’s type at all.

I made one final attempt to get Himself to come along with me.

“It’s going to look very strange if you’re not there.”

“Tell them I’m sick,” he says.

“But you’re never sick. Jennifer will see through that right away. Shur you went to that county final with that hernia. It was like a match programme sticking out of your jacket.”

“Tell her I have some new yoke. ADHD or something.”

“You do not have ADHD and might I remind you that your own grandson has it so don’t be throwing that term around, mister.”

“Well tell the hoor I’m not there because I don’t like him.”

I gave up. The upshot now is that I had to get the train. I couldn’t drive in Dublin with all the new roads and they’re like lunatics then if you even delay a small bit at the lights.

I’m always careful about where I sit on the train in case I get stuck talking to a quarehawk. It’d start off friendly with: “Who’s above in Dublin?” and then you’d get to Heuston and they’d be saying: “Jump into the car for a lift,” and you’d have to pretend to be on the phone. I sat next to this woman much the same age as myself. She was looking at me at a kind of an angle as if she was trying to place me. There was something familiar about her.

“You’re a Kilsudgeon woman are you?”

I told her my story. Although I left out the bit about Denis not liking Declan. You don’t want to give away too much at the start, you wouldn’t know who you’d be talking to. But I made it fairly clear we weren’t sure about Declan.

We had a great chat. Then, out of the blue, she says: “Would you know a Nuala Costigan in Kilsudgeon?”

“I do. I know Nuala well.”

She started to laugh.

“Oh Ann, you’re GAS. The look on your face. You couldn’t hide it. Lookit, I know what my sister is like. Everyone I meet has the same look as you. She’s an acquired taste. I’m like her spin doctor going around the place after her. I suppose she’s always on about Brian – the son?”

I said that she might have mentioned him.

“And she’s always done out in the best of everything?”

I thought of the time she was at Kilsudgeon show with a pair of white trousers of all things.

“She’s a pain in the backside but she’s good at the end of it. You see, we hadn’t a PENNY growing up. Our father was useless. He’d quote you Shakespeare but he couldn’t milk a cow or mend a fence. The Doctor they called him around the place. And they were laughing at him and Nuala took it hard. She said to me one day: ‘I’ll never be humiliated again Tina.’ So she married the first fella she met who had some bit of money and she never looked back. She’s always on about you actually. ‘I must invite Ann up for tea but she’s always busy,’ she says. You’re easy to talk to she says.”

This was news to me. I could feel the train getting stuffy. All these years I’d cross the street to avoid her ...

We got into Heuston and there was Jennifer and Declan waiting for me.

I’ll give him another chance I think.