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the rocks before it occurred to him. I was swinging a stick around, swishing it through the air, trying to make perfect ‘Z’s in the sand, like Zorro. Dom was doing his best Mick Jagger impersonation, all hips and lips. The two of us were singing ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and were just on the eighth go-around of the chorus when Dom let a whoop out of him and took a sudden curve for the steps.
    I immediately followed, his loping enthusiasm too infectious to resist. ‘Where are we going?’ I yelled.
    He stopped at the top of the steps and turned to look back at me, his arms as wide as his grin, the wind whipping his hair and his army jacket and throwing sand into his teeth. ‘Let’s take the harbour!’
    The town was all ours. The Easter holidays didn’t start ’til next week, and all the other kids were in school. There were no summertime packs of sharp-eyed gurriers, no lounging teenagers. We were as free and unselfconscious as mutts. We tussled and ran and fenced our way up the harbour road, the fierce salty tang of the harbour itself already in our lungs. There were workmen and fishermen and auld wans out shopping, but they were on another plane of existence. They didn’t impact on us at all.
    Then we rounded the corner and caught them throwing the old man out of the pub.

    HE WAS VERY OLD , maybe Nan’s age, but these two big men were hauling him out the door like a bundle of rags. One of them was shouting, ‘Out, you old bastard. Out!’ The other was silent, but his face was stony with rage and he had a grip on the auld fella vicious enough to snap his twiggy old arm.
    From the smoky murk behind them, the Wolfe Tones were playing very loudly on a jukebox, and there was the general hubbub of a packed bar. A few faces were turned to the door, watching the eviction. I could just see the barman as he turned away, his mouth a firm, approving line. There were harp and shamrock flags over the bar; there was a ‘Free all Irish political prisoners’ poster on the wall.
    The auld fella didn’t seem to even notice the treatment he was getting. He was singing to himself – a gravelly, emotional waver. ‘The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling,’ he sang. ‘For youuu but not for meeee. And awl de little devils have a sing-a-ling-a-ling, for you . . . but not for me.’ His head bobbled about on his neck, his fine white hair a tufty cloud in the sunlight.
    â€˜Shut. UP!’ yelled one of the men. ‘Just shut it !’ He shook the old man, hard, and the auld fella’s feet slid out from under him so that he was suspended by one frail arm and the scruff of his neck.
    â€˜Hey!’ I cried, stepping forward. ‘You’ll hurt him!’
    Dom put his hand on my shoulder, holding me back. ‘He’s pissed out of his tree,’ he murmured. ‘Leave it.’
    That became clear enough when the old man got his feet under him and tried to shrug off the two bruisers. He slurred something incomprehensible and swiped at them in the thoroughly disorganised manner of a drunk. One of the men shook his head in disgust. He gave the auld fella another shake.
    â€˜You should be ashamed of yourself, you old bollox. Coming in here, singing your British shite. Why don’t you just shut up and die?’
    The old man blinked up at him, his pale-blue eyes watery and unfocused. ‘The . . . the bells of hell . . . for you. But . . . not . . . ’ He wasn’t singing now, just muttering to himself. He seemed on the verge of tears and, although he was just another maudlin drunk, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was swaying, and looking about him in tragic confusion. ‘But not for me,’ he whispered, and shuffled around in a ragged circle as though looking for something.
    He saw the two bruisers, and focused on them as if for the first time. His face filled with sudden anger. He pointed a shaky,