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Lydia. She lives there with them too. She’s a dressmaker.’
    So they had a son my age, did they? My mood lifted a little bit. I looked down at my jeans and T-shirt and made an excuse to get back to the caravan. Now that it seemed Cian and Nick were in the past, maybe I needed to dress for the future.

Chapter 3
    The Smyths’ sitting room resembled the chaotic interior of a back-street antique store. I breathed in the stuffy air as I sat on the couch among the tasselled cushions, staring up at the dusty chandelier. I like antique stores. I like rummaging through all the objects to find hidden treasures. In that sitting room I longed to examine the ornaments and the photographs and memorabilia, but I couldn’t, because Colin Smyth sat on the chair across from me, his eyes fixed on the flickering television. He had a thick mop of red hair and his attractive face was covered in pale freckles. He wore a blue shirt and grey cord trousers.
    Quite a stylish dresser , I thought. Back in the caravan I’d frantically tried to make myself look presentable. I was wearing a short purple velvet dress that I’d bought in a vintage shop, black fishnet tights and black Converse. Although Colin wasn’t really my type, he had a certain cuteness, so I was glad I’d made an effort.
    Colin hadn’t said much during dinner but he seemed nice. He had happily obliged when Brigid suggested that he bring me into the sitting room to watch TV, but he totally avoided making eye contact with me. I don’t normally like people whodo this – it makes me uneasy. But I decided to let Colin off the hook, as he just seemed to be a bit shy.
    We hadn’t spoken a word since we sat down in front of the TV. I tried to think of a conversation starter as I scanned the framed paintings and prints that clashed with the floral-papered walls.
    Several times it seemed as if Colin was about to say something, but then he would just look back at the television, pretending to be enthralled by it. Then when he wasn’t flicking through the channels he was fidgeting with the button on his shirtsleeve. He twisted it round and round and round.
    Just think of something to say, Jacki. Anything at all.
    Round and round it twirled, then – ping! – the button bounced on to the wooden floor and rolled away, skimming the rug and disappearing from view. Colin’s face went bright red. I stood up to look for it.
    ‘It’s OK. It doesn’t matt–’
    ‘I think it went over here,’ I said.
    I knelt down to check under a glass-fronted cabinet, but was distracted by the unusual objects inside. These included a perfume bottle, a magnifying glass and a delicately painted porcelain egg with a hinge on the side. I very much wanted to open the egg to see what was in it.
    ‘Found it!’ said Colin.
    ‘Thought you two might like a snack –’ Brigid Smyth walked in with a bowl of freshly made popcorn to find us both on our knees on the floor.
    ‘Oh … thanks,’ I said, scrambling back to the couch.
    ‘Are you two OK?’
    ‘Yes, Mam,’ said Colin. ‘We were just looking for my button.’ He held it up to show her.
    ‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to it then.’ She headed back to the kitchen.
    Colin took a handful of popcorn from the bowl. I noticed that there were flecks of paint on the backs of his hands and remembered Brigid had said at dinner that Colin liked art, so I decided to spark up a conversation and find out more.
    ‘What kind of art do you do?’ I said. I liked drawing, but I wasn’t very good at art and I didn’t know a lot about it.
    ‘Oh, I like lots of different styles. At the moment I’m really into Manga-inspired stuff, you know, like the Japanese comics,’ he answered, shifting his gaze away from the TV and looking at me instead.
    ‘Wow, that sounds really cool.’ My friend Hannah would’ve been disgusted if she’d heard me say that. Last year her brother had done a twenty-four-hour comic workshop in Dublin with some famous Manga