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sloping hills on three sides, the grass yellow and parched. I don’t understand how in a country that gets as much rain as this one does, we can be having a drought, have you ever heard the like of it? the old people keep saying to each other as they pay for their groceries in Spar, their Calvita cheese, cooked ham and white sliced pan in their hands, ignoring the queue of customers behind them, talking too long to the bored shop girl who just wants them to leave so she can go back to reading her magazine. We walk past a group of sixth years from St Michael’s, all wearing the blue-and-yellow Ballinatoom jersey with ‘Hennessy’s Pharmacies’ stitched on the front in red, nudging each other as I pass.
    We climb halfway up the hill on the left and settle in front of the clubhouse. A soft cashmere blanket from Avoca is pulled out of Ali’s wicker carrier basket. ( Be careful , I could imagine Mam saying if that was ours. Don’t get any stains on it. It’s for good use. ) ‘One for you, one for me,’ she says as she hands me a bottle of factor-fifty suncream, keeping the SPF6 oil.
    ‘Ah, the old skin cancer in a bottle.’
    ‘And one for you, one for me.’ She ignores me again, giving us a packet of Haribo Tangfastics, grabbing the medjool dates for herself.
    ‘I can’t eat these,’ I say.
    ‘Why not?’ Jamie sighs.
    ‘Eh, because of the gelatine?’
    ‘Oh my God, are you still pretending to be a vegetarian?’
    ‘How is it pretending when I—’
    ‘I have popcorn,’ Ali says. ‘That’ll be OK, won’t it?’
    I take the bag off her. (I should smile. I should say thank you.) ‘Fine,’ I say.
    We lie down, propping ourselves up on our elbows, and pretend to watch the match. The ball goes back and forth, players taken off and brought on, the crowd baying for blood, then proclaiming them gods for our time.
    ‘They’re not playing very well, are they?’ Ali says as the old man next to her, wearing dark tweed trousers and a matching jacket despite the heat, starts screaming obscenities at the stupid cunting ref and, Will ya look, Campbell, will ya just fucking open your eyes and look around ya?
    Campbell’s mother, standing two metres away from us, winces at that but she doesn’t comment. ‘They’d better get their shit together for the County,’ I say. ‘I want to go to the Winner’s Gala ball again.’
    ‘You were so lucky to get to go last year,’ Maggie says. Sean Casey asked me, and I told him I’d have to talk to Ali first. I could tell she didn’t want me to, but I knew Ali would never say no to me. Fine , she said, her shoulders slumping. Go if you want to.
    ‘Sure what’s the point of bringing the Dineen lad on at this stage?’ the old man grumbles as one of the Ballinatoom players limps towards the dugout, moving sluggishly in the hazy heat. I sit up at the mention of his name. ‘I didn’t think much of him at the friendly against Nemo, but if Ciarán O’Brien, in all of his fucking wisdom, thinks Dineen will make such a difference . . .’ The rest of his sentence is drowned out by the crowd’s screaming, and I snap my head back to see Jack weaving around the exhausted backs, the ref blowing the whistle pretty much as the ball hits the back of the net.
    ‘That Dineen lad is brilliant . . .’ I hear people saying as they start walking towards the clubhouse.
    ‘. . . there’s talk that the young Dineen lad is going to make the Cork team . . .’
    ‘. . . he has to, doesn’t he?’
    ‘I haven’t seen footballing like that in years.’
    I beckon my girls together, waiting until we’re in a close-knit circle.
    ‘I’m going to score with Jack Dineen tomorrow night.’
    ‘Oh my God, like,’ Jamie says. ‘Does he even stand a chance?’
    I wait a beat. ‘Nope,’ I say. ‘Not a chance.’
    And we all crack up laughing, Jamie too, and for a second it feels like nothing has changed.
    There’s a sudden ear-splitting scream. It’s Dylan Walsh in front of the clubhouse,