The lights had changed to a deep underwater haze and behind me a girl started singing, low and throaty and strong. In the slow spinning beams of green and gold Rosie looked like a mermaid, like a mirage made out of color and light; for a second I wanted to grab her and crush her tight against me, before she could vanish between my hands. She took my breath away. We were still at the age when girls are years older than guys, and the guys grow up by doing their best when the girls need them to. I had known since I was a tiny kid that I wanted something more than what the teachers told us we were meant for, factories and dole queues, but it had never hit me that I might actually be able to go out and build that something more with my own hands. I had known for years that my family was fucked up beyond repair, and that every time I gritted my teeth and walked into that flat another little piece of my mind got strafed to rubble; but it had never once occurred to me, no matter how deep the crazy piled up, that I could walk away. I only saw it when Rosie needed me to catch up with her.
I said, “Let’s do it.”
“Jaysus, Francis, stall the ball! I didn’t mean for you to decide tonight. Just have a think about it.”
“I’ve thought.”
“But,” Rosie said, after a moment. “Your family. Would you be able to leave?”
We had never talked about my family. She had to have some idea-the whole Place had some idea-but she had never once mentioned them, and I appreciated that. Her eyes were steady on mine.
I had got out that night by swapping Shay, who drove a hard bargain, for all of next weekend. When I left, Ma had been screeching at Jackie for being such a bold girl that her da had to go to the pub because he couldn’t stand to be around her. I said, “You’re my family now.”
The smile started somewhere far back, hidden behind Rosie’s eyes. She said, “I’ll be that anywhere, sure. Here, if you can’t leave.”
“No. You’re dead right: that means we need to get out.”
That slow, wide, beautiful smile spread right across Rosie’s face. She said, “What are you doing for the rest of my life?”
I slid my hands up her thighs to her soft hips and pulled her closer to me on the ledge. She wrapped her legs around my waist and kissed me. She tasted sweet from the wine and salty from the dancing, and I could feel her still smiling, up against my mouth, until the music rose around us and the kiss got fiercer and the smile fell away.
The only one who didn’t turn into her ma, Imelda’s voice said in the dark beside my ear, rough with a million cigarettes and an infinite amount of sadness. The one that got away. Imelda and I were a pair of liars born and bred, but she hadn’t been lying about loving Rosie, and I hadn’t been lying about her being the one who had come closest. Imelda, God help her, had understood.
The yuppie baby had fallen asleep, in the safe glow of his night-light. His ma stood up, inch by inch, and slipped out of the room. One by one, the lights started to go out in the Place: Sallie Hearne’s Santas, the Dwyers’ telly, the Budweiser sign hanging crooked in the hairy students’ gaff. Number 9 was dark, Mandy and Ger were snuggled up together early; probably he had to be in work at dawn, cooking businessmen their banana fry-ups. My feet started to freeze. The moon hung low over the roofs, blurred and dirty with cloud.
At eleven o’clock on the dot Matt Daly stuck his head into his kitchen, had a good look around, checked that the fridge was closed and switched off the light. A minute later, a lamp went on in a top back room and there was Nora, disentangling her hair elastic with one hand and covering a yawn with the other. She shook her curls free and reached up to draw the curtains.
Before she could start changing into her nightie, which might make her feel vulnerable enough to call Daddy to deal with an intruder, I tossed a piece of gravel at her window. I heard it hit with a sharp little crack, but nothing happened; Nora had put the sound down to birds, wind, the house settling. I threw another, harder.
Her lamp went out. The curtain twitched, just a cautious inch. I flicked on my torch, pointed it straight at my face and waved. When she had had time to recognize me, I put a finger to my lips and then beckoned.
After a moment Nora’s lamp went on again. She pulled back a curtain and flapped a hand at me, but it could have meant anything, Go away or Hang on. I beckoned again, more urgently, grinning reassuringly and hoping the torchlight wouldn’t turn it into a Jack Nicholson leer. She pushed at her hair, getting frustrated; then-resourceful, like her sister-she leaned forward on the windowsill, breathed on the pane and wrote with a finger: WAIT. She even did it backwards, fair play to her, to make it easy for me to read. I gave her the thumbs-up, switched off the torch and waited.
Whatever the Dalys’ bedtime routine involved, it was nearly midnight before the back door opened and Nora came half running, half tiptoeing down the garden. She had thrown on a long wool coat over her skirt and jumper and she was breathless, one hand pressed to her chest. “God, that door-I had to haul on it to get it open and then it slammed back on me, sounded like a car crash, did you hear it? I nearly fainted-”
I grinned and moved over on the bench. “Didn’t hear a sound. You’re a born cat burglar. Have a seat.”
She stayed where she was, catching her breath and watching me with quick-moving, wary eyes. “I can only stay a minute. I just came out to see… I don’t know. How you’re doing. If you’re all right.”
“I’m better for seeing you. You look like you nearly had a heart attack there, though.”
That got a reluctant little smile. “I nearly did, yeah. I was sure my da’d be down any second… I feel like I’m sixteen and climbed down the drainpipe.”
In the dark winter-blue garden, with her face washed clean for the night and her hair tumbling, she looked barely older. I said, “Is that how you spent your wild youth? You little rebel, you.”
“Me? God, no, not a chance; not with my da. I was a good girl. I missed out on all that stuff; I only heard about it from my mates.”
“In that case,” I said, “you’ve got every right to all the catching up you can get. Try this, while you’re at it.” I pulled out my cigarettes, flipped the packet open and offered it to her with a flourish. “Cancer stick?”
Nora gave it a doubtful look. “I don’t smoke.”
“And there’s no reason you should start. Tonight doesn’t count. Tonight you’re sixteen and a bold little rebel. I only wish I’d brought a bottle of cheap cider.”
After a moment I saw the corner of her mouth slowly curve up again. “Why not,” she said, and she dropped down beside me and took a smoke.
“Good woman yourself.” I leaned over and lit it for her, smiling into her eyes. She pulled too hard on it and collapsed into a coughing fit, with me fanning her and both of us stifling giggles and pointing at the house and shushing each other and snickering even harder. “Oh, my Jaysus,” Nora said, wiping her eyes, when she could breathe again. “I’m not cut out for this.”
“Little puffs,” I told her. “And don’t bother inhaling. Remember, you’re a teenager, so this isn’t about the nicotine; this is all about looking cool. Watch the expert.” I slouched down on the bench James Dean style, slid a cigarette into the corner of my lip, lit it and jutted my jaw to blow out smoke in a long stream. “There. See?”
She was giggling again. “You look like a gangster.”
“That’s the idea. If you want to go for the sophisticated starlet look, though, we can do that too. Sit up straight.” She did. “Cross your legs. Now, chin down, look at me sideways, purse up your lips, and…” She took a puff, threw in an extravagant wrist flourish and blew smoke at the sky. “Beautiful,” I said. “You are now officially the ice-coolest wild child on the block. Congratulations.”