Look who’s talking, he’d said. When was the last time that little prick had a girlfriend? And he had started to move off.

Imelda had said, That’s all you know.

That had stopped him. Yeah?

The lads are waiting on their pints. Go on, off you go.

I’ll be back in a sec. You just hang on there.

I might. Or I might not.

Of course she had waited for him. Rosie laughed at her when she dropped the drinks down to them in a rush, and Mandy faked an outraged sniff (Robbing my fella), but Imelda gave them the finger and hurried back up to the bar in time to be lounging there, all casual and sipping her glass of lager and one button undone, when Shay got back. Her heart was going ninety. He had never looked twice at her before.

He bent his head close and gave her the intense blue gaze that never let him down, slouched on a bar stool and slid one of his knees in between hers, bought her the next drink and ran a finger over her knuckles when he passed it to her. She spun the story out as long as she could, to keep him with her, but in the end the whole plan was spread out on the bar between them: the suitcase, the meeting place, the boat, the London bedsit, the music-business jobs, the tiny wedding; every secret thing Rosie and I had spent months building up, fragment by fragment, and keeping safe and precious next to our skin. Imelda felt like shite about doing it; she couldn’t even stand to look over at Rosie, cracking up laughing with Mandy and Julie over something or other. Twenty-two years later and the color still flamed up in her cheeks when she talked about it. She had done it anyway.

It was such a pathetic little story, a snip of nothing, the kind teenage girls fight over and forget every day. It had led us to this week and this room.

“Tell me,” I said. “Did he at least throw you a quick fuck, after all that?”

Imelda wasn’t looking at me, but the red patches deepened. “Oh, good. I’d hate to think you went to the hassle of selling me and Rosie down the river, all for nothing. This way, yeah, two people ended up dead and a big bunch of lives ended up getting blown to smithereens, but hey, at least you got the ride you were after.”

She said, in a thin stretched voice, “You mean…? Me saying it to Shay. Did that get Rosie killed?”

“You’re a fucking genius.”

“Francis. Did…?” Imelda shuddered all over, like a spooked horse. “Did Shay…?”

“Did I say that?”

She shook her head.

“Well spotted. Pay attention, Imelda: if you go spreading that shite around, if you say it to even one person, you will regret it for the rest of your life. You’ve done your best to wreck one of my brothers’ name; I’m not having you wreck the other.”

“I’ll say nothing to anyone. I swear, Francis.”

“That includes your daughters. Just in case squealing runs in the family.” She flinched. “You never talked to Shay, and I was never here. Have you got me?”

“Yeah. Francis… I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I never once thought…”

I said, “Look what you did.” It was the only thing that would come out of my mouth. “Sweet Jesus, Imelda. Just look what you did.” And I left her there, staring at ash and broken glass and nothing.

19

That night lasted a long time. I almost rang my lovely lady friend from the Tech Bureau, but I figured few things can put a damper on a cheerful shag quite like a partner who knows too many details about how your ex died. I thought about going to the pub, but there was no point unless I was planning to get moldy drunk, which struck me as a truly lousy idea. I even thought, a lot, about ringing Olivia and asking if I could come over, but I figured I had probably pushed my luck far enough that week. I ended up at Ned Kelly’s on O’Connell Street, playing game after game of back-room pool with three Russian guys who didn’t speak much English but who could spot the international signs of a man in need. When Ned’s closed up, I went home and sat on my balcony, chain-smoking, till my arse started to freeze, at which point I went inside and watched delusional white boys make rapper hand signs at each other on some reality show until it got light enough that I could eat breakfast. Every few minutes I tried to hit that mental switch hard enough that I wouldn’t see Rosie’s face, or Kevin’s, or Shay’s.

It wasn’t Kev all grown up I kept seeing; it was the sticky-faced kid who had shared a mattress with me for so long that I could still feel his feet tucked between my shins to keep warm in winter. He had been the prettiest of us by a mile, a chubby blond angel off a cereal ad; Carmel and her mates used to haul him around like a rag doll, changing his clothes and shoving sweets in his mouth and practicing to be mammies someday. He would lie back in their dolly prams with a big happy grin on his face, lapping up the attention. Even at that age, our Kev had loved the ladies. I hoped someone had told his multiple girlfriends, and been gentle about it, why he wouldn’t be coming over any more.

And it wasn’t Rosie shining with first love and big plans who kept sliding into my mind; it was Rosie angry. An autumn evening when we were seventeen, Carmel and Shay and me smoking on the steps-Carmel smoked back then, and she let me bum off her during school terms, when I wasn’t working and couldn’t afford my own. The air smelled of peat smoke, mist and Guinness’s, and Shay was whistling “Take Me Up to Monto” softly to himself between his teeth. Then the shouting started.

It was Mr. Daly and he was going apeshit. The details got lost, but the gist of it was that he wouldn’t be crossed under his own roof and that someone was going to get the back of his hand in a minute if she wasn’t careful. My insides turned into one solid lump of ice.

Shay said, “A quid says he caught his missus riding some young fella.”

Carmel clicked her tongue. “Don’t be filthy.”

I said, keeping my voice casual, “You’re on.” We had been going out for a little over a year, me and Rosie. Our mates knew, but we played it down, to keep the word from spreading too far: just having a laugh, just messing, nothing serious. That felt more like bollix to me every week, but Rosie said her da wouldn’t be happy, and she said it like she meant it. Part of me had spent the last year waiting for this evening to kick me in the teeth.

“You haven’t got a quid.”

“Won’t need it.”

Windows were sliding open already-the Dalys fought less than just about anyone in the Place, so this was high-quality scandal. Rosie yelled, “You haven’t a bleeding clue!”

I got one last drag out of my smoke, down to the filter. “Quid,” I said to Shay.

“You’ll get it when I get paid.”

Rosie flung herself out of Number 3, slammed the door hard enough that the nosy biddies shot back into their lairs to enjoy being shocked in private, and headed our way. Against the gray autumn day, her hair looked like it was about to set the air on fire and blow the whole Place sky-high.

Shay said, “Howya, Rosie. Looking gorgeous as always.”

“And you’re looking like a bag of spanners, as always. Francis, can I have a word?”

Shay whistled; Carmel’s mouth was open. I said, “Yeah, sure,” and got up. “We’ll go for a walk, will we?” The last thing I heard behind me, as we turned the corner onto Smith’s Road, was Shay’s dirtiest laugh.

Rosie had her hands jammed deep in the pockets of her jeans jacket and she was walking so fast I could hardly keep up. She said, biting off the words, “My da found out.”

I had known that was coming, but my stomach hit my shoes anyway. “Ah, shite. I thought that, all right. How?”

“When we were in Neary’s. I should’ve known it wasn’t safe: my cousin Shirley and her mates drink there, and she’s a mouth on her the size of a church door. The little cow saw us. She told her ma, her ma told my ma, and my ma bleeding well told my da.”