 
# Watching Them

## by Fiona McShane
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously.

Text Copyright © Fiona McShane 2015

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

Website: https://fionamcshanewrites.com

Table of Contents

Part One

Prologue One

Prologue Two

Carina

White Lies

Books

Mr McEvoy's Little Women

The Barrys

The Bungalow

It

Cocks and Hens

Backdrops

Part Two

Prologue

St Mary's

Sister Assumpta

Summer Studies

Fifth Year

And Sons

Mr Considine

Easter

The Office

Last Term

Part Three

Prologue

Summer

Oisín

Colm

Eta Carinae

Nothing Feckin' Lasts

Collowgulloric War

Our Song

The Storm

The Hag's Chair

Money

Tseen She

The Viewing

Dreams

Reverence

Part Four

First Weeks in Dublin

Suspending Time

Liamo

Last Days in Dublin

The Slaughterhouse

Home

Christmas Eve

Little Lake

Christmas Day

Saving Them

Afterwards

Voiceless

Part Five

Living

Versions of the Truth

Gary, Major and Me

Late

Epilogue

From the Author
Part One
Through the open gates of Nally's, the breaker's yard, I saw row after row of worn-out cars. I wanted to stop there. I wanted to park next to those cars, close my eyes, and wait for the town to disappear. It was just a blip, I kept telling myself, a nothing place a few miles from Cavan town. But it was looming, regardless – larger than memory, larger than reality, as I approached the main street.

I needed to use the toilet so I parked messily, with the passenger side barely within the lines, and rushed into the Long House. All four customers looked up as I ran into the ladies' room. I could smell lamb stew but, thinking about my dog waiting in the car, I bought a takeaway sandwich and tea instead.

I was about to open my car door, holding my sandwich in my mouth by the corner of the packet and trying not to spill my tea when someone said, 'Hey Viv.'

I didn't need to look up to know that it was Colm. His voice was the same, even though more than thirteen years had passed. I put my sandwich and tea on the roof of my car and tried to say hello, but what came out was an odd sort of mumble.

'Didn't think we'd see you back around these parts,' he went on.

Major was jumping against the back window of the car, so I turned to let him out, hoping that by the time I turned back around I would have calmed my vocal cords enough to speak.

'Well, y'know,' I said, patting Major on the head to relax him. 'I was just passing through. Heard about a sale in some furniture place nearby so I thought I'd take a look.'

As he nodded, his hair fell into his eyes. I think I smiled then, and looked at him intently. I didn't want to, I just couldn't help myself. His hair was still wavy, auburn and not in any style. He had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, just as he used to, baring his forearms. The skin there was lightly coloured and dotted with freckles, exactly as when I last saw him. His face, too, was dotted with small freckles. But it was his eyes, in the end, that drew me back and made me remember myself. Do people's eyes change, as they age? Colm's hadn't. They were warm brown, as they had been when he was eighteen, and they looked at me in the same direct way they had then.

'Not up to visit anyone while you're here?'

I shook my head, trying to hold Major back. Colm didn't seem to mind. He patted the dog's head and bent down to his level. Major was medium-sized, a terrier cross, with lanky legs and wiry grey fur. Though still young, he was used to people looking at him and saying: ' _I'd say he's ancient, is he? What the hell sort of dog is he?'_ Colm asked none of these things, and his simple, unquestioning attention was welcomed by Major, whose tail went wild as he slobbered all over Colm's face.

'Thought you might be up to see Jennifer,' Colm said. 'Ye've been keeping in touch, I thought.'

I shrugged, reaching out to pat Major. My arm was barely out before I retracted it, worried about how Colm would react if I got too close.

'For a while we were in touch,' I told him. 'The odd phone call, but... y'know how it is. She told me about the farm, though. I was really sad to hear about it finally going. She said you bought the breaker's a while back. I saw it's still called Nally's, though, so maybe I took her up wrong.'

He scratched the back of his head and concentrated on the dog. 'It's mine all right. Don't exactly have the most trustworthy surname in the town, do I? Seemed better to just leave it. Yeah, I'd only just bought it when the farm came back on the market so... I guess the farm was never meant for me. But Mam and Davey are running Nally's with me, so... how's the saying go? All's well that ends well. And you're a teacher? I was really happy to hear about that, Viv. First and second class kids, Jennifer said.'

He stopped rubbing Major and looked up at me for a second and I think... I don't know. I think he was about to say something more, but then a little girl came out from the closest shop, and Colm stood up, straight and suddenly.

She ran out at first, and she opened her mouth as if she had something to tell him but, seeing me, she became shy. She stood behind him, hugging his leg the way little girls do, using his leg as a barrier, peeping around at me and my dog and the bump on my belly.

And then Colm looked too, at my stomach, and I felt a sharp, absolute sadness. It came and went in the space of a second, but I saw it in his eyes too as he looked at me. He opened his mouth but said nothing, and after a moment I spoke.

'I'd better be going, I suppose.'

'Me an' all. Have to get this one home for her lunch or the Mrs'll be sending out a search party.'

He rubbed the girl's hair and she giggled up at him. If I'd wondered whether she was his daughter or just a niece or the child of a friend, I wasn't wondering any more. She gave him a look of such total adoration, that look that all little girls reserve for their daddy, back when they still think he's the most perfect man in the world.

'You should take a look above at the old place,' he said as they walked away. 'It's all change up there, these days.'

My goodbye, just as my hello, came out as an odd mumble. I don't know if he looked back at me, or waved, because I had to turn away. I got Major settled back in the car, and worked my way behind the steering wheel.

If I got any bigger I'd have to stop driving, because it was becoming uncomfortable. I felt so huge, sitting there, looking in my rearview mirror as their figures grew smaller. They got to a row of terraced cottages I'd passed on my way into town. I knew it would be Susan's house that he turned into. I knew that I should drive away and stop looking.

Jennifer had told me all about it – how Colm and Susan had started seeing each other, how Susan's parents moved to Spain and Colm and Susan bought the house. Our phone calls petered out around that time, almost five years ago, and I never heard about the little girl. She looked around four, I guessed.

I wasn't able to keep up the conversations with Jennifer. I'd see her number flash up and ignore the call. I couldn't listen to her tell me more about Colm – what he was up to, how well he and Susan were getting along. It was Jennifer's way, to keep in touch with everybody, to want to find out what was going on in everyone's life. She wasn't doing it to make me feel bad, or at least I don't think so. I shouldn't have let it bother me so much. Me and Colm, we weren't any great love. Even back then, eighteen and dumb, we could not have called it love.

≈

Why I'd lied to Colm about furniture shopping, I have no idea. Of all people, he would have understood why I needed to make this journey. I think he would have understood it better than I do. I should have done it long before, but I don't think I could have endured the lake in winter. I let the months pass and my belly grow, until late spring came and I was on maternity leave.

I drove slowly out of the town and parked at the top of the lane that led to our house and the Barry farm. Major jumped up against the window, panting excitedly as he saw the fields full of cattle. When I let him out he sped ahead, sniffing everything in his path.

There was gorse all around. It shocked me at first, because I'd forgotten how strong the scent was on warm days like this, and I almost thought it was something new, something I'd never smelled before, until I looked and saw the spiky green and gold. I remembered how it used to remind Carina of Malibu sun lotion. She would close her eyes, inhale deeply and pretend she was lying on a beach thousands of miles away, smeared in coconut oil.

The fields we passed were full of bullocks, but I suppose because I had Major with me they didn't frighten me as much as they used to when I was a girl. The fences were rickety, crookedly positioned posts with barbed wire ran across. It looked like they hadn't been replaced since the last time I saw them. There were all these little parts where, because the ground was so uneven, there would suddenly be a lot of space between the barbed wire and the ground. When the bullocks were young and skittish I used to be afraid that they'd squeeze through one of those gaps and come after me.

Carina had never been afraid of the bullocks. Even when they'd follow us for the whole length of their field, even when they'd push against their gate, even when they grew bigger and bigger as the season passed, she was never afraid.

The lane sloped upwards so that, until you got to the top, you couldn't see our property or even Little Lake. I walked the hill slowly. I wasn't finding the climb difficult, but I wanted to delay the sight until the very last second.

When I got to the top I stood for a moment and looked down at the lake. Despite the heat of the day I shivered. I tried not to close my eyes, tried not to even squint, in case the darkness and the chill of that night had imprinted itself upon the place. I focused on it with my eyes wide, trying to see it as it was now, and not how I held it in memory.

The new houses weren't really unexpected, given that so much of the county had changed. Ours was still the biggest house on the lake, but someone was doing a lot of work on it: banging and drilling noises came towards me, and a skip sat in the driveway.

Carina's house was gone. Just gone, like it had never existed. A bigger, newly built house sat a little bit away from where her bungalow had been situated.

Each of the new houses had its own slipway or jetty, and half of them had boats moored, or else on trailers in their driveways. Our lake was so small, though, that I thought they probably took their boats to Lough Sheelin or Lough Ramor, the way we had sometimes done.

There was willow, gorse, hawthorn, fir and elder when we were growing up. It made our houses private. It made little overgrown areas for Carina and me where, for a long time, we could play hidden from view. Back then the trees used to shroud the old wooden gazebo so that you couldn't see it from either of our houses, or even from the road. Now, everything had been cut back to make room for the new properties, and the gazebo was in plain view. It sat there rotting into the water for all to see. It shocked me. It seemed vulgar that everyone could see it in that condition, that no one had thought to repair it or have it taken down. They'd just left it there, wasting before their eyes.

I remember once seeing a painting of our house, commissioned when it was built almost a hundred years ago. The view in the painting was from the top of the hill, and you could see the gazebo, bright and new, joined to the shore by a wooden bridge. By the time we lived in the house most of the bridge was gone, so that we had to swim or take a boat to get out there. It looked, from the painting, as if the trees were low enough that you could even have seen it from our houses back then, as if it had been a feature instead of the hideaway it later became.

I walked further on, to the Barry farm, thinking that it would be the same as our property – that it would be knocked down, or there would be dozens of new houses on the land. I stalled for a second, actually stalled with one foot not quite on the ground, when I saw that it was still there. There was a big board nailed to the front fence, saying that the land was for sale, and advertising it as a 'development opportunity.' But it was as if they were just a hundred metres the wrong side of progress. Work had stopped at our property, and on the Barry farm little had changed.

The buildings looked as neglected as they always had, and the same old sadness settled in my stomach as I walked into the yard and took in the condition of the farm.

Even in my childhood the sheets of roofing metal on the cattle sheds were coming away from the frame, and when the wind got strong they made such a noise. It used to wake me in the night sometimes, and no matter how I covered my ears I couldn't get back to sleep. The wind would whistle through the holes in the roof, and bang the sheets of metal, making me think of the banshee. I imagined her crying out and whipping her horses as she drove them through the sky.

If it was winter, and the cows were in their sheds, their lowing would be heard every time the wind died down. For years I didn't believe that it was the cows. They were monsters, I thought, calling up to the banshee, begging her to come down and claim them.

Now, almost the entire roof of the biggest shed was gone. Most of the gates were gone from their hinges, and even the rusting old caravan that sat unmoving for years had been removed.

The yard was mostly nettles, but there were tall dandelions and daisies that made it somewhat less desolate. When I looked up at the house, I saw that most of the windows had been smashed.

Major ran right through the nettles. It's probably something to do with how thick his fur is, the way he never seems to get stung. I had to step more carefully. I had cushioned sandals on my feet, and I was wearing a skirt, so it took me some time to get to the front door without being stung. It made me very aware of what I was wearing – the hippy skirt and the sandals – and I blushed, even though I was alone, because I felt so unlike myself. My hair was curling, my forehead was sweating, and I was dressed like I was trying to do the Earth Mother thing, when all I wanted was to be skinny again, in jeans and decent shoes.

The front door was locked. Once, there had been a key left under a purple flowerpot filled with weeds. There was no flowerpot any more. I pushed at the door but there was no give.

I banged at the wood, almost crying. I thought of the journey back across the yard. Every part of me began to ache, to feel weary, until I saw Major running around to the back of the house. I followed, feeling a surge of energy, catching up with my dog as he ran in through the wide-open French doors at the back.

The doors led into what the Barrys had called their 'good sitting room.' Now, cans and bottles and other rubbish lay all over the floor. The carpet was still there, but I couldn't make out the pattern; I heard a squelching noise as I walked over it, as if it was soaked through with something I didn't want to think about.

Graffiti was scribbled all over the walls. Mickey and Lisa did it here on Wednesday, apparently (well, they had written Wensday, but I took their meaning). I don't know what came over me, but I took a pen from my bag and scrawled _Congratulations_ underneath.

I walked upstairs then, and went into Colm's bedroom. Some of his posters were still on the walls, but they had little spots of mould all over, and had curled and faded with time and damp. There was no longer a bed, but there were cushions on the ground and a plastic chair by the window. I decided against the cushions and, after giving the chair a quick wipe with some tissues I had in my bag, I moved it against the wall where the headboard used to rest. I sat down and tilted my head backwards.

Some days when he was at work, I would lie on his bed and wait for him, with the window open, listening. Even if it was night I would open the window. Somehow, when I was on his bed, the fear of childhood left me. The cows could low, the wind could howl, the roof could crash and rattle. None of it would frighten me. I could lie, and listen, because there I was safe. There the world, and the wind, would slow and grow quiet. As long as I was on his bed, as long as he was coming home to me, nothing bad could happen.

I didn't have to open the window that day, because it had been thoughtfully smashed. The wind was picking up outside, and I tried to do as I used to – I closed my eyes so that I could believe I was lying down, believe that I was lying on his bed and waiting for him. I tried to let the safeness of his room surround me, to feel the world begin to slow. But the same feeling came over me, as sharp as on the street, quick and hard to take, and I stood, called Major, and left the house.

I ran around to the front yard, ignoring the nettle stings on my ankles and calves. I couldn't slow down. I couldn't stop. I kept my eyes half-closed as I ran back along the lane and to my car. Major didn't want to get in and I almost screamed out loud, annoyed with him. I picked him up and put him in the back seat while he looked at me in that baleful way that dogs do, a way that made me sure I was in the wrong.

All the way home to Bray he kept his head in his paws, not looking at me once, not even looking out of the window while I drove quickly and played the radio too loud.
≈

I'd been looking at the directions for half an hour when he knocked at the door. They were really simple instructions, and yet I couldn't make myself lift a screw.

I opened the door, went back to the room I had been in, and let him follow. I didn't say a word to him, just sat down on the floor of the spare bedroom and picked up the directions again.

'The cot?' Gary asked.

I nodded.

'Where's Major?'

I sighed. 'He's in the garden. He kept sending the screws all over the kip and getting paw-prints on the instructions.'

'Is some of it missing?'

'No.' I laughed. 'I don't think I've ever actually bought flat-packed furniture that's got something missing. I think it's a modern myth, to be honest.'

'You could've asked me to help. I told you when it came the other day that I'd put it together whenever you wanted.'

I looked at him. There was a pen stuck behind his right ear, and his hands had reminders scribbled all over. 'So do it,' I said.

'Really?' He grinned, but then bit his lip and looked unsure. 'You don't mind me being here?'

'Do it,' I said. 'Put it together. Please. I can't concentrate on anything.'

He had already picked up the first piece of wood, so I left the flat and went downstairs. For a few minutes I stood at the doorway that linked the storeroom to the shop. I felt naughty, which was stupid. I was the one who had insisted on using the back entrance, avoiding the book shop for the past few weeks.

I went in and headed straight to the secondhand children's books, having an overwhelming urge to read to my belly. It was something I'd been doing lately, sitting by myself and reading out loud, feeling sure that the words were seeping through.

When it came to children's books, I preferred the secondhand section of our shop. Some of the books people brought in to sell were copies of books I knew Carina had owned. Sometimes, because of the condition of a book – maybe it had a mark similar to one I remembered – I would fool my brain into thinking that it was actually one of hers.

I'd go to lengths in my inventions, imagining that maybe this one didn't get destroyed – maybe this one was lost, somehow, before that day. Maybe this one had been left behind on a bus, or in a shop, or on a bench, and somehow made its way here, all these years later.

I picked up Thumbelina, and the Snow Queen, and a little collection of Irish Fairy Stories. I couldn't decide which one to read, until I spied a copy of Sleeping Beauty on the lowest shelf. Gary must have bought it recently, because I would have noticed it straight away. It was worn and old, a Ladybird version of the story, but I wanted it more than anything.

Sleeping Beauty was always more difficult than the others, when it came to my game of pretend, because I still had the tainted copy. I could never look at one on a shelf and say, 'Maybe,' with Sleeping Beauty. But there was something about this copy. It wasn't simply that it was a Ladybird version, like the one I kept. There was something about the creases in the spine, and the fingerprints that dirtied the pages. This was a used copy, in the best sense of the word. Maybe with this one I could trick my mind, and visit the memory, even smell the air of that mild spring afternoon when we sat by the bank of the lake and she read the book out loud.

In our book shop we sold hot chocolate, tea, coffee, juices and snacks, and held book clubs two nights a week. There were old armchairs and a big, comfy sofa by a gas-fire that we lit in the winter.

I chose the sofa, and I think I must have fallen asleep after a few pages, because when Gary touched my head and put his hand on mine to lead me upstairs, the book had fallen to the floor. I bent, awkwardly, and seeing me struggle he bent to pick it up for me, while I fought the urge to lunge for it, to snap it away from him.

'My book,' I wanted to say, like a child.

He handed it to me without a word, and we walked up to the flat.

He looked so proud, so happy, as we stood in the doorway of the spare room. Behold my manly skills, he may as well have said, as he watched for my reaction.

'It's great,' I told him. 'Since you've put it together though, I think I ought to be the one to paint it.'

His face fell, but he tried his best to keep his voice upbeat. 'I can do that. You need to keep away from anything toxic at the moment.'

'I'm supposed to be keeping away from _everything_ at the moment,' I said. I sounded ratty; even I could hear it in my voice. I could see that my tone had upset him, so I smiled and said, 'Have you eaten yet?'

He nodded. 'I actually came around earlier to see if you fancied lunch. You must've been out.'

'I went for a drive. Needed to clear my head.'

'Did it work?'

I shrugged. The bedroom was at the front of the flat, facing the waterfront, and as I looked out I noticed the colours that the sunset lent to the sea. I think it must have made me smile, or give off some signal that I was in a good mood, because I could feel him moving closer to me, and I stood there, waiting. He drew beside me, and I knew he'd been out for a swim that morning, because his hair smelled like the shampoo I'd bought him to help with salt damage.

Even before he reached out I felt my body move, felt it arc and fall back into his. He stroked my face, with a hand so soft and warm that it made me sigh out loud. I don't know if it was due to familiarity – that my body was simply responding as it had done for years – or if it was because I missed his touch, but I let him go on, kissing my shoulder and my neck, with his hands on my stomach, travelling to my breasts. I laid Sleeping Beauty on the side of the cot, and turned and kissed him on the lips.

It was me who led him to our bedroom, at first with a little bit of fear. If he questioned what this meant, or where this was going, the moment would be broken. But he stayed quiet, perhaps sensing the delicacy of the situation, or perhaps simply caught in the feeling as we undressed each other and lay on our bed.

He let out a long exhalation as he entered me and began to move. The sensation was stronger, somehow. It was probably because my body had changed, but it felt as if we were back in our early days, as if it was one of our first times.

I had wondered, in my early stages, if it would become awkward as I grew bigger – just the positioning, I mean. I had imagined my bump made me an unapproachable fortress. And maybe it would have caused difficulty, or at least called for some imagination, on any other day, but at that moment everything was easy.

When we finished we stayed there for a long time. We hadn't pulled the curtains, so the room was still bright, and I closed my eyes. I could have slept then, I think. I could have slept for hours although it was barely evening, but I felt him stir next to me, and I felt his hands begin to move again.

He trailed his fingertips along my collarbone and my swollen breasts. He let his lips follow, along the line of my neck, over my nipples, and onto my belly.

'Beautiful,' he said, kissing the taut skin. He looked at me with a wide smile, placing his hand on my stomach. 'I can't believe our little girl is in there. All those years I thought I couldn't give you kids, and now she's actually _in_ there. Our miracle. I can't believe how much I love you both.'

Nausea came, fear came, with a constriction of my throat. My mind was cloudy, almost asleep, and for a moment I couldn't speak. All I could do was shake my head and push his hand off my stomach.

His eyes were wide. 'What's wrong, Viv? Did I hurt you?'

I grabbed the covers and pulled them over me, still shaking my head. 'We haven't even talked about anything. We can't just sleep together and then that's it. Everything back to normal.'

He sat straight up and stared at me. 'I thought I'd _hurt_ you, Viv. I thought I'd hurt the baby or something.'

'I'm sorry. All right? I know I'm sending you mixed signals here, and I'm sorry. But you can't expect to just plaster over things. I can't do that any more. I can't just bury my head. Not now. I need this to be right. This has to be right.'

He shook his head and started to put on his shirt. 'I have no clue what's wrong with you, Viv. I have no idea why we're having this separation, but you said a few weeks. It's _been_ a few weeks.'

'I know. I know. I thought I'd have it sorted by now.'

'Have what sorted?' He grabbed my hands and tried to look me in the eye, but I kept looking down at the blankets.

'You won't even tell me what the problem is. I keep asking you can we talk about this, Viv. Can we just... I'll go and stick the kettle on and we... we need to sit down and talk.'

'It's time for Major's walk. I need to get dressed and take him out. Please, go back to Mark and Niamh's for the night. I promise you I'll sit down and talk to you, but not now. Just... Please just not now. I need to get things right in my head first. A couple more days.'

He started to bite his lips, and his nostrils went really wide, but he didn't say any more. He grabbed the rest of his clothes and got dressed as quickly as he could. He wouldn't look at me, and when he left he slammed the door behind him. I heard him rush down the stairs, through the shop, and slam that door as well. The little bell that hung over the door was still ringing, long after he'd locked the door and left.

Gary had every right to be angry with me. He had every right to be confused. Since I told him I needed a break, eight weeks ago, I hadn't yet sat down with him and told him what was wrong. At first he took it so well. He was sleeping in his old bedroom, in his brother's house, and he hadn't rushed me in the slightest. Maybe he thought that it was hormonal. Maybe he hoped that, after years together, this would be the catalyst that would make me finally open up to him.

Eight weeks ago we were told the sex of the baby. I can still see it, the look of absolute joy on his face when we were told we were having a girl. I cried, but they weren't just tears of happiness. I had spent years thinking that we would never have children, thinking Gary was incapable, but there I was, with an undeniable child in my womb. Real now. Not a foetus. Not an it. Gary's child, a baby girl, growing within me.

I want her more than anything in the world. You have to understand that. But these days I have so many nightmares. It feels like all I do is think about the past, and fear the future. I think that's why I went to Cavan today. Because since the day I found out I was expecting this baby, the first eighteen years of my life are all that I can think about.

Memories don't come into your mind in any way that can be called linear. They sort of clump on top of one another and, for some reason, as soon as you try to focus on what you remember as happy, the bad ones crowd the good ones down. Like, if I say I'm going to try and go back to the beginning, I think about where I stood this morning looking out at the gazebo, and I _try_ to remember the games we used to play, where I was rescuing Princess Carina from pirates. I try to remember the things she told me about being there with Oisín. But when a place holds so many memories, good and bad, somehow the bad are the ones you can't get out of your head. But I'll try to go against the way of memory. I think it will be easier that way.
Carina

Her imagination used to frighten me. Tree stumps became goblins. A rock jutting out of the water was a pirate boat rising up from the bottom – or worse, a sea monster that had lain dormant since the Ice Age had been awoken by our singing. The reflections of the willow branches were snakes, wriggling through the water towards us.

The weather could change so quickly there, and the concurrent changes in the light went some way, I think, to making her stories seem real. Mists would curl through the trees and hang low over the water, and even if I couldn't see the monster Carina swore was just a few feet away, I believed that it was there, cloaked and waiting, creeping towards me unseen. I preferred to stay inside on the really misty days. Sometimes her house would disappear from my view, and I could sit in my bedroom and pretend she didn't exist.

Carina was my only playmate at the age I'm thinking of – five or six or so. I couldn't count on Sarah to keep me company in those days. I think I resented it a little bit, the way it was always Carina and me, the way we were stuck with only each other as friends. There were three days between us, in age, and she and her family spent most of their time at our house.

There is no definite moment I can pinpoint and say: that's when I started questioning. There were probably times, when I was very young, when I tried to challenge things, but most of the time I kept my thoughts to myself and didn't say a word. I didn't feel I _could_ speak to anyone. Maybe it was the same for the other siblings. I didn't think I had the power, and they probably thought the same. When you're a child, how you live is how you live.

And how we lived was with this version: Pauline was my mother, Michael my younger brother by three years, and Sarah my elder sister, also by three years. We all lived together in one house. In the bungalow on our property, directly across the lake from our house, lived Carina, her brother Graham and her mother Therese. Graham was the same age as Michael, and they – like Carina and me – were each other's only playmates.

Both houses sat at the narrowest section of the water, so there was hardly any distance between the two. My father owned the lake – we called it Little Lake – and a few acres surrounding it, including the bungalow. He came to stay on the property during some weekends and holidays, but he worked in Dublin and was away most of the time.

Our surname was McEvoy. Carina's surname was Reynolds. Therese and Pauline told people they were sisters, which would have made Carina my cousin. The Reynolds' house had been built for the staff of our house a long time ago, so it made sense, I suppose, that we all spent most of the time in the bigger house. Actually, once we were older and at boarding school, I began to think of the bungalow as being their dorm room, because they usually only went there in the evenings, and even then it wasn't every night.

The way in which we were related, and the fact that we lived as two separate families, was the slant we lived with; it was a version we would have sworn to, had anyone asked.

On the nights they went to the bungalow, I would turn out my bedroom lights and stand by the window. I would wait there in the darkness and watch as the lights went on in the Reynolds' house.

Carina's bedroom was at the front, and I could see it clearly. Our rooms were so different. She had pale walls, and rows and rows of books on shelves and even piled on the floor. Sometimes when we were young I used to glance around my room, secretly smug as I looked at the dolls and cuddly toys that sat neatly on my shelves, and the twin pink princess beds with their purple canopies draped above.

On evenings when it was just us – the mothers and the kids – then she would lie on top of her bedspread, reading for hours until she fell asleep with the light still on.

And on the days when it was just us, if the weather was up to it, Carina and I ran wild around the lake. It was our world then, and it seemed huge. The forest bordered the road and kept us hidden, so that we felt like we owned our own private kingdom. We would play unheeded for hours, our favourite times being when we acted out Carina's dramas on the gazebo.

In our childhood it was dark there, even in the summer, even in the daylight, but that didn't matter to us. We would wade out if the water was warm enough (needing to swim as we drew nearer to the gazebo), and when it was cool we would take the little rowing boat.

The boat was always the more risky option, because we weren't very strong rowers. There were days when we would find ourselves going around in circles, until we eventually had to give in and cry for help.

I never wanted to cry, to make any noise at all, because I was scared of waking the creature at the bottom of the lake. But after a while hunger or cold would win out, and I would shout along with Carina until one of the mothers came. If it was Therese, Carina's mother, she would laugh for at least five minutes before she threw the rope and dragged us back to the bank. If it was Pauline, she would scowl, shake her head, and pull us back without saying a word.

≈

Thinking about how it looked this morning, almost completely wasted into the water, it amazes me that I suddenly find those times so precious. Even back then the rail that ran around the sides had most of its posts missing, and the roof was filled with holes. It was a short period, maybe only two summers, when that place was just ours. And while at the time she could scare me so much with tales of snakes and pirates, now my mind fills with how wonderful she could be, too.

Her words were as slippery as the water. Her voice could change how you saw things, more powerfully than the shadows and the light. When she spoke, our swimming costumes could become long, beautiful gowns, and the structure around us a great, candlelit dancehall. Our legs could become mermaids' tails, and our singing beautiful enough to lure handsome sailors to their doom.
White Lies

The morning started off well, considering it was a Monday. Therese woke me up with hot chocolate and a slice of toast smothered with jam.

'You can eat this in bed, sleepy-head,' she said, tousling my hair.

I didn't ask the reason for the room service. It happened sometimes that Therese would wake me up instead of my own mother, and when she did it was always with something tasty. I finished quickly and went to the bathroom. On my way there I noticed that Sarah's door was open and her bed was neatly made.

Back in my bedroom, I pulled open my blinds and looked across Little Lake to the bungalow on the other side. All of the blinds were drawn.

Our kitchen was a huge room, with an old range cooker that we never used – we used a new electric cooker instead – and a long wooden table. There was a couch close to the fireplace, and an armchair with a spring that would dig into you if you dared to take a seat. It was the room where we spent most of our time, unless we were watching TV.

When I walked in that morning Carina was sitting at the table across from Therese. Graham sat on Carina's lap, whilst my brother Michael was sitting on the rug drinking out of a beaker. I shook my head, sure that I had long finished with beakers by the time I was the boys' age. But judging by the way Therese was looking at Michael and saying, 'Drink up, there's a good boy,' in a silly voice, I feared that they would forever be babied.

'Where's Sarah?' I asked. 'Is she waiting in the car?'

Therese shook her head. 'Nope. She won't be coming with us today.'

I looked at Carina, but she had hoisted Graham off her lap and left him sitting next to Michael, and she was now approaching the fruit bowl. She took everything out before she would believe something so horrendous could be happening. She looked at Therese, and back at the fruit on the counter, with her eyes wide.

'One banana,' she said. 'And three oranges.'

Therese shrugged and checked her watch. 'And?'

'And?' cried Carina. ' _And?_ Where are the apples, Mam?'

Therese went over to Carina and put an arm around her. 'Pauline did the shopping this time. She must've forgotten, I suppose. Now be quiet, because she'll be back any minute.'

Carina and I rounded our eyes at each other, but went quiet nonetheless. She took an orange, put it in her schoolbag, and came back to wait with me at the table.

Only a few seconds passed before Pauline rushed in through the back door, looking flustered. She went over and kissed Michael's head, saying, 'Mammy's back now.'

There was no other conversation, no good morning, no goodbye, as Carina, Therese and I went out to the Fiesta.

I pulled at the hem of Therese's cardigan as she opened the car door, and I whispered, 'Is she all right? Can I see her?'

Therese shook her head, smiling. 'Go on away with you. You're a little chancer, aren't you Viv? Anyway, this means one of you gets to sit in the front with me.'

Carina looked at me. I knew what she meant without either of us needing to say the words. It was Sarah's seat. The last time I sat in Sarah's seat I spilled apple juice, and there had been a row that went on for weeks. Two weeks earlier, when Carina got cracker crumbs on the seat, there had been stony silence from Sarah the next time she was in the car.

Carina climbed into the back of the car, and I sat beside her while Therese started the engine and said, 'Oh well. Suppose I overestimated my popularity.'

In the schoolyard, Therese waited in line with us until Miss Quinn came outside to bring us to the classroom. As we followed Miss Quinn, I watched Therese walk over to Sarah's teacher, but they were well out of my sight and earshot by the time they began to talk.

≈

Miss Quinn was our teacher for low babies and high babies, which was what we called our first two years of primary school. I remember thinking of her as glamorous, and smart, and exactly how I wanted to be as an adult. I wished she was our mother, or our sister, just so that I could see more of her. She wore her hair tied in a ponytail that had mostly fallen out by the end of the day; when it was loose and untidy like that, she looked even prettier. She had a seemingly endless succession of long skirts, many of them denim. She wore hoop earrings, and make-up that reminded me of the actresses on Dallas.

I suppose I was too young, then, to notice or care what the other children said about us, or maybe I was just so crazy about Miss Quinn that I would have loved school regardless. Miss Quinn paid so much attention to Carina and me that there were days when we didn't want to leave the classroom at home time. If anyone did jeer us, she would speak to Therese after school. We never got to hear those conversations. They would be whispered while we sat waiting in the car. Afterwards Therese would be agitated, and would make us promise not to mention a word to Pauline.

'You know what she's like,' Therese would say. 'We'll just tell her we're late because of traffic. And we'll have rashers and scrambled egg on Sunday, if you manage to keep it to yourselves.'

≈

When we got to the classroom that morning and Carina handed Miss Quinn the orange, I stood my ground beside her. I couldn't abandon Carina to the shame, but still I kept my eyes on the carpet tiles while Miss Quinn smiled and said, 'Do you know, I was just thinking this morning that I'd love an orange instead of an apple.'

At break time we stood close to her in the yard, watching her peel and eat the fruit.

'We didn't even say the rhyme,' Carina said. 'Did you notice? We always say the rhyme with her.'

'Well, we couldn't, could we?' I pointed out. 'I mean, it was an orange. We can't say an apple rhyme when all we've got is an orange.'

I knew what she meant though. It was part of the day, part of our routine. It was important to us, in a way I never really understood, that routine we shared with Miss Quinn. Usually we would proudly hand her an apple and she would say, 'Thank you girls. You know what they say... An apple a day...'

And every single day Carina and I would laugh and finish the rhyme with, '... keeps the doctor away.'

≈

Therese came to collect us from school that day. She stopped in the town on the way home and, with a wink, told us to wait in the car. We watched her run into the supermarket, wondering what she was getting. When she returned she was swinging a bag of Granny Smith apples and grinning at us. She hopped back into the car and, with a finger over her lips, said, 'Hide these. I found some money down the back of my car seat.'

Carina grabbed the apples and put them in her schoolbag. 'We can keep them as a stockpile,' she said. 'Thanks Mam. We can't risk another day like today.'

Therese giggled, and we went quickly home. The stop at the supermarket had probably only added another five minutes to the journey, but as we walked into the kitchen Pauline glared at Therese and said, 'Don't bother with your excuses about traffic again, my girl.'

As Pauline turned to leave through the back door, Therese called, 'Wait!'

Pauline kept going, but more slowly, letting Therese catch up with her a few feet outside the door. I crept closer, trying to listen, while Carina shook her head in warning.

'Is she all right, though?' I heard Therese ask.

I couldn't see their faces, but I imagined my mother rolling her eyes as she replied, 'She's just being a drama queen, as usual. I'll have her up and about by the morning.'

The door creaked open, and I ran from it as Therese re-entered. I stood at the window by the sink, watching Pauline on her walk around the lake.

Therese put a soft hand on my back and said, 'You'll only make things worse, Vivienne,' as she steered me towards the table.

'What do you want to eat, so?' she asked, rolling up her sleeves and opening the freezer. 'I was thinking burgers and chips. That sound all right?'

Carina was the one who answered, saying, 'That'd be yum, Mam.'

≈

The next morning I got up early and stood by my bedroom window, watching while Sarah and Carina walked from the bungalow and back to the house. I listened to Sarah come upstairs, and by the time we were all in the kitchen for breakfast she was wearing her school uniform, and her hair was in a neat ponytail.

Therese played the radio loud on the way to school that day, but I don't think any of us would have talked much, anyway. Now that Sarah was back, my main concern was Miss Quinn.

When we got to the school, she wasn't waiting for us at the head of our line. Our whole class stood there higgledy-piggledy until, at about five past nine, a teacher from another class came out and led us to our classroom.

As we filed into the room I clutched worriedly at the Granny Smith, trying to see over Martin, the boy in front of me, who was rounder and taller than I was.

She would be at her desk, surely. I crossed my fingers. She had to be at her desk.

Carina nudged me, seeing him before I did: a substitute, sitting in Miss Quinn's chair. He wore a brown suit, with black shoes that were brightly shined, and his tie was so tight I wondered if he could breathe. His hair was shiny too, scraped into a neat side-parting that I instantly disliked.

'That's Miss's desk!' I growled at him. 'What are you doing there?'

I don't remember what he said in reply, only that it upset me even more. The only word he said that meant anything to me was, 'Sick'. Miss Quinn was sick.

I imagined her lying in bed, weak and exhausted, with no one to look after her. I looked at the apple we had brought for her, and cried.

He didn't understand what I was upset about. He ushered Carina and me to our desks and went back to sit in Miss Quinn's seat. Carina took the apple from me, rushed back up to the substitute, and said, 'You have to give this to Miss Quinn.'

He took it with a sigh and said, 'I'll see what I can do. Now sit back down for roll-call.'

She came back to sit beside me, and we glared at the substitute.

'He's not going to give her the apple,' whispered Carina. 'He probably doesn't even know her.'

'Do you know where she lives?'

Carina nodded. 'Yeah, remember we saw her car in the driveway of that little cottage when we went shopping last month. It's miles away. Anyway, we wouldn't be allowed.'

'Well anyway,' I said, ' _he's_ not getting the apple.'

I ran back to the desk and snatched the Granny Smith.

The substitute rolled his eyes and said, 'Can you just take a seat? I'm starting roll-call. Right –' He raised his voice and glanced around the room. 'I'm going to call your names now, in alphabetical order. Do you all understand what alphabetical means?'

There were shrugs and murmurs. After a few seconds he said, 'Fine. Just say _anseo_ when you hear your name.'

When I got back to my desk he had already begun, and he didn't even look around to see who was saying, ' _Anseo_ ,' as he called.

We did know how to say ' _Anseo_ ,' but we weren't happy about having to do things that way. Miss Quinn knew us all so well that she rarely bothered with the official roll-call. She would glance around the class, mumble things like, 'Paddy's here, Vivienne's here...' and so on, under her breath, while she ticked against our names on the register.

And if, by chance, someone was off that day she would look genuinely sad and say something like, 'No Jennifer again today. Oh, the poor thing must still have that tummy bug.' She would get us to paint pictures and make cards to cheer up whoever was sick.

The substitute, we could tell, wouldn't do anything so nice.

'Barry, C,' he began, and the confusion was instant. It took Colm a while to realise that he was Barry, C. By the time we got to the Ms I had begun to understand the way of things, and I barked out, ' _Anseo_ ,' before he had finished saying, 'McEvoy, V.'

He was almost at the end, and Carina and I were so busy chatting about what could be wrong with Miss Quinn that we didn't notice he had reached the Rs.

He called, 'Reynolds, C,' about three times.

Susan Lynch prodded Carina with a ruler and said, 'Oi, Carina, are you off in La La Land or what? He's calling your name.'

Carina looked up, and said, ' _Anseo_ ,' unsurely, while the substitute sighed and put a tick against the name.

The rest of the day was miserable. He wouldn't let us make cards for Miss Quinn. He made us do schoolwork while he sat at the desk and read a newspaper.

When we got home my mother was peeling potatoes. Sarah ran upstairs without saying a word to anybody, and Carina and I went to play with our brothers on the rug by the fire.

≈

We went through the rest of the week with the substitute, and every day he grew more annoyed with us as we constantly asked him, 'When's Miss Quinn back?' and 'Is Miss Quinn all right?'

He was probably as relieved as we were the following Monday, when she returned to school. When she led us into the classroom Carina and I went to the desk with an apple.

Miss Quinn smiled and said, 'What would I do without you two? What do we say? An apple a day –'

I gave up after my second attempt, while Carina couldn't even begin the rhyme.

'Oh, girls,' said Miss Quinn. 'What's the matter?'

We hesitated, afraid she would laugh, but eventually Carina told her, 'We made you sick. We didn't give you your apple last week, and you got sick.'

'But it wasn't even me who was sick,' she informed us with a gentle smile. 'I was just off looking after my mother. And do you know, if I _was_ coming down with a cold, an orange would probably be better than an apple. Oranges have vitamin C, lots of it, to help keep colds and flus away. Bet you didn't know that.'

We walked away, not quite convinced. She sniffled and coughed throughout the day, and she blew her nose once or twice. When the day was coming to a close, I told Carina I was going to confront Miss Quinn.

'She's sick, Carrie. Why can't she just _say_ she's sick? I'm going to make her tell me the truth.'

Carina put a hand on my arm and shook her head, whispering, 'It's just a white lie, Vivvy. Everybody tells them. She's only doing it for the best.'

I agreed not to press things, but after that day we never once neglected to give Miss Quinn an apple. Even when we went on to first class we would run over to Miss Quinn each morning before school to give her the fruit. It wasn't until we were finished second class that Miss Quinn married and left the school, going to live and teach in London.

I felt too foolish to tell Carina about it, but over the weeks following Miss Quinn's departure, I began each day with a prayer: I prayed that someone in her London class would be sensible enough to bring her an apple every day.
Books

I preferred Sindy dolls to Barbie dolls, wholly because my ice-skating Sindy looked like May Barry, Colm's mother – except that May's hair was auburn, whereas my doll's was blonde. I once coloured my doll's hair with a felt-tipped pen so that she would be different to all of us and more like May. The effect was unrealistic and faded quickly, but the doll remained my favourite.

I had lots of accessories: clothes, shoes and tiny cassette players for my dolls to carry around; I even had a toy dog that my dolls could take for walks.

Christmas was coming, and normally I would have known for sure that I would get what I asked for, but that year I was worried. I was fighting with Sarah every day, I was averaging six out of ten on the latest round of spelling tests, I had written a story in school that Pauline was angry about (I wasn't sure why at the time, and now I can't remember what it was that I wrote), and I had thrown a stone at my father's boat. I had done no damage, but that (according to Pauline) was 'not the point.'

There were bases to cover, and Carina – who had been so good all year that there was no doubt she would get anything she asked for – was going to have to help.

'Just write it!' I told her, passing her my pen.

She sighed and took the pen. 'All right. But I don't want it, though. I just want books, I told you that.'

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. How many times was I going to have to explain this to her?

'Books are always our mammy and daddy presents. Why would you waste your Santa letter on something you're going to get anyway?'

Carina went on writing, and I watched carefully. She was doing as I asked, copying my letter word for word, but I still wasn't happy. What if the intent behind the words mattered? What if Santa could tell what you really wanted, whether you asked for it or not?

'You have to _want_ it, Carrie. When you're writing it, you have to want it.'

'Shush!' she said. 'Just shush and let me get on with it before you wake the whole house. Do you want to wait another month before I'm allowed sleep here again?'

I went quiet, knowing she was right. It was the middle of the night, hours since Pauline had told us to go to sleep. On the other hand there were only a few weeks to go till Christmas, which made this urgent. Pauline would understand. Well, maybe she wouldn't, but Therese would, for definite.

Carina handed me her finished letter and I compared it to mine. We had both asked for the same thing. One of us would get it, for sure, and since Carina had no interest in the doll house, either way it would be mine.

≈

Christmas was Therese's favourite time of year, and she would play Christmas songs for weeks beforehand, singing out of tune along with her tapes. She would make her own decorations and try to get us to help, although we usually made a mess of things. When she decorated the tree it looked like something out of a little girl's dream. She would throw on so much tinsel and so many baubles, and would string hundreds of multi-coloured lights, all different designs – there were lights shaped like stars, like angels, like flowers, even lights shaped like chilli peppers.

Pauline did her part too; she would cook a huge ham and turkey, and make her own cake and trifle and Christmas pudding.

Every year, up until that one, I recall as being perfect. I wonder, now, if it could possibly have been so: that to me, all Christmases before my eighth seemed magical.

≈

I woke at six on Christmas morning, and listened to the sounds of the house. I could hear Pauline turn over in her bed, and a second later Michael coughed. As soon as they quietened I sneaked down to the living room and plugged in the lights of the tree.

My mouth hung open and I stared for a long time before I dared to approach: not one, but two Sindy houses, side by side. And they were furnished! Someone had assembled the houses, and put in beds, a bathroom, a living room and dining set and a pink kitchen. Each house even had a swimming pool sitting on the roof terrace.

When he came in holding Carina's hand, I jumped.

'Look, Santa's had his elves put tags on the dolly houses,' he said. 'They'll probably tell us which one belongs to who. Go on, girls. Santa wouldn't have left them if he didn't want you to play.'

I ran forward while Carina stood next to him, looking around. She approached the tree and sifted through the presents there as the others came into the room. Her face broke into a wide smile as she found what she wanted and ripped off the wrapping paper.

Therese brought breakfast in for all of us, and we remained there for most of the morning. Graham and Michael played with toy cars, and Sarah listened to songs on her new hi-fi. The TV and hi-fi were both so loud that you couldn't really hear what was playing on either.

It was about eleven, I suppose, when Pauline decided that it was time to move the toys to the bedrooms.

'There's no room for the doll house in my room,' Carina argued, while the rest of us began to pack up our presents. 'Where's it supposed to go?'

Pauline glared at Carina. 'Seriously? You're wondering about this _now_? While the turkey's in the oven, and I've got spuds to peel, you're suddenly wondering where the present _you_ wanted is going to go?'

Carina resumed looking at her book – it was a comic book annual, I think – and shrugged. 'I didn't really want it in the first place. Vivvy can have it. She's got loads of room for two.'

I went over to Carina, nudging her so that she would know to play along, and then I said, 'She didn't mean it like that, though. She's really glad she's got it, aren't you Carrie?'

Carina shrugged.

'And she'll play with it in my room. We wouldn't be able to play together in her room, anyway, would we? She'll come over and play with it here, won't you, Carrie?'

Carina shrugged again and laughed quietly at whatever she was reading.

Pauline came and lifted my house, awkwardly, and began to drag it from the room. The doll house was nearly as tall as she was, and was twice as wide.

'This one is going up, anyway,' she said. 'As for yours, Carina –'

She didn't finish her sentence. Furniture began falling out of my house and onto the carpet. I didn't dare cry, even as the floors began to come apart from the frame.

Therese ran forward to try to help, but a warning glare from Pauline made her take a step back. Pauline hoisted it into the air, so that the rooms faced upwards, and maybe she thought no more furniture would fall out that way, but the back wall of the kitchen and bathroom came away, and my new bath and toilet spilled out onto the floor.

He stood up from his armchair and stepped forward. Before he said a word, Pauline stopped. We all looked at him.

'Be more gentle with it, can't you?' he said, touching Pauline on the arm. 'Therese, you can give her a hand. Pauline, you'll let Therese help, won't you?'

Therese gave him a breathy little smile and went to Pauline again. Pauline scowled, but let Therese take a hold.

He sat back down on his armchair and I ran to his lap, throwing my arms around his neck. I kept an eye on things though, watching over his shoulder as the mothers carried my doll house from the room.

≈

Our Christmas dinner that day was a silent affair, unless you count the sound of people swallowing, or breathing, or scraping their cutlery against their plates. The turkey was dry and the roast potatoes and parsnips were burned, but no one complained. They lit the pudding on fire, as usual, but no one clapped, or 'Aahhed' while they watched. We didn't even eat any of the sherry trifle.

Afterwards Sarah went upstairs and the rest of us went back into the living room to watch TV, while the mothers washed the dishes. I don't know what films were on that afternoon. The boys and my father were engrossed in whatever they were watching, and Carina was engrossed in whatever she was reading, but I spent the whole time staring at the second Sindy house, wondering why Pauline hadn't brought it upstairs after she brought mine.

I didn't hear anything that night although, if I had, I would have stayed in my bedroom as usual. It was Michael who noticed, when he went to watch TV the next morning. He ran into the kitchen where I was eating breakfast with Pauline.

'Carrie's house!' he cried breathlessly, and ran back to the living room.

Pauline didn't follow, I remember that much, because I kept looking behind to see if she was coming. When everyone else arrived a few minutes later and we were all looking at the mess on the floor, she finally ventured into the living room.

The whole doll house was in pieces – not neatly taken apart pieces, but hacked at, cut at, ripped at pieces. The plastic furniture was splintered. The bedclothes were torn. The little drinking glasses and make-believe records and books from the living room cabinet had been crushed, as if stamped on by someone's foot. All of it, every single piece, was destroyed.

Carina didn't cry. She looked around the room at every single one of us before saying quietly, 'I don't care. I've still got my books.'

I watched as she turned and walked out. I felt a huge swell of love for her. I wanted, so much, to go and take her hand the way that my father was doing.

'Take the boys up to Mikey's room to play,' Pauline told me, and I did as she said.
Mr McEvoy's Little Women

Break time was over, but we were in no rush to be first back to the school doors. The drizzle was building, so that our hair stuck to our heads. I watched beads of water dripping from Carina's eyelashes. God, they were long, those lashes.

What age were we on this day I'm remembering? Ten, I think, because we were missing Sarah. She may not have talked to us much at break times, but at least she made our number three instead of two. She had gone to boarding school that year, and I wished for the time to pass more quickly so that it would be our turn to go, too. It can't have been long into the new term, either, because I was pulling at the maroon tie around my neck, not yet used to wearing it again after the summer holidays.

Carina grabbed my wrist so that she could look at my watch.

'C'mon, Vivvy,' she said. 'Better go.'

I groaned, but followed her in through the doors and along the corridor to the changing rooms. She pushed at the door, and I could already feel it before I entered the room behind her: the suppressed sniggers. They wouldn't waste their energy by laughing out loud. All they had to do was smirk slightly, look away, and carry on with the conversation that would always exclude us.

We towelled our hair and changed into our tracksuits, bringing up the rear as the girls ran into the hall. I remember looking out through a window as we ran, feeling relieved as I watched the rain come down heavier. We might just get to stay inside, instead of doing our usual laps around the school.

'Right,' said Miss Leonard.

She spoke in what most of the pupils called a 'lesbian voice.' I don't know why, but they seemed to find it hilarious. Every time she spoke, someone would nudge someone else, and say, 'Dyke' or 'Lesser.'

'The rain's too bad to go outside,' she went on, 'so I thought we'd play dodgeball instead. For the first round I'll go easy on ye all. We'll make it three hits and you're out.'

I wanted to be happy – this way, at least, Miss Leonard would be watching us constantly – but my shoulders sank. I'd hoped for basketball. Even soccer wouldn't have been so bad. Dodgeball, though, was painful.

Carina, I noticed, drew herself tall. I tried to do the same, but I doubt I appeared as confident. She was good at sport. I was too, but I knew that how good we were didn't really matter. If it came to picking teams, the class always left us until last. They would vie for asthmatic Brenda and fat Martin before they would concede to having one of us on their team.

As it turned out that day we were playing on opposite sides. We had progressed easily through the game, not getting hit even once. There were four players left – Jennifer Brown was on my team, and on the other team Carina and Susan Lynch remained. Jennifer and Susan were best friends, and hated being on opposite teams as much as Carina and I. They looked funny together – Jennifer being short and slim, Susan being tall and broad – but no one ever teased them. Not to their faces, anyway.

Miss Leonard changed the rules for the round to: one hit and you're out. Carina had the ball.

'Get Viv in the face,' said Susan, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Miss Leonard rolled her eyes upwards. 'Just get on with the match, Susan,' she said. 'It's a game, not an opportunity to do mischief.'

'If you get her,' said Susan to Carina, barely bothering to lower her voice, 'you can come over to mine after school. Everyone else is coming.'

Carina laughed. I could see what was going through her mind as she aimed the ball, easily hitting Jennifer.

'She got you!' called Miss Leonard. 'You're out, Jenny.'

Jennifer walked to the side, glaring at Carina. I think I must have drawn some sort of strength from what Carina did, because when my turn came, and I could so easily have hit Carina, I aimed for Susan instead. This time it was my turn to be on the receiving end of the glare.

'Mr McEvoy's Little feckin' Women!' spat Susan. 'Freaks'll always stick together.'

'I heard that,' said Miss Leonard. 'Outside, Susan. I want two laps from you.'

'But Miss, it's lashing out of the heavens!' she complained.

'Two laps, Susan. Will you go and get on with it right now, or do I have to make it three?'

For the rest of the class Miss Leonard stood at the door, watching Susan grow wetter and wetter. Carina didn't smile, and neither did I.

≈

Susan was pinning me down. She was heavy, big and square. Carina was trying to pull her off, but Jennifer Brown and Paddy Nally were pulling Carina back.

We were at the lake just outside town, close to the school. I could see Jennifer's house at the end of the terrace of cottages, and Susan's two doors up from that.

'You little bitch!' shouted Susan. Her face was screwed up close to mine, and all I could think was how thick and brown her eyebrows were, while she pulled out what felt like a whole chunk of my hair. 'I got soaked because of you.'

I just lay there, looking away from her eyebrows and up at the birds flying from the reeds around the lake. I felt annoyed that their peace had been disturbed.

Colm was there too, standing off at the edge, wringing his wrists and looking nervous. He didn't kick me, or come near me, but he didn't do much to try to stop it at first, other than the odd, 'Ah come on, Susan, ease off of her, will ya?'

He was not like Carina. He didn't rush into the fray with no care for the consequences, the way that Carina did so easily. With his house being our closest neighbour, you would have thought that would make us friends, but it didn't. At the time I didn't even blame him. It was sensible of him to join the other kids. With his father's reputation in our town, siding with us would have been the worst thing Colm could have done. Siding with us would have made Colm the next target.

I don't know how long it went on. I had a thing I used to do at times like that where I was sort of there but not there. I could distance myself, so that it barely even hurt when Paddy kicked me with one of his big boots, right at the side of my stomach, above my right hip. He was big, too, like Susan. They were no relation, as far as I knew, but they shared the same height and broadness, and the same thick eyebrows.

I didn't cry, or scream for them to stop. Colm did say something around that time, as soon as Paddy kicked me. He said he saw someone coming, but the others looked around, saw no one, and kept on going.

A few others were beginning to arrive to watch the entertainment. I knew they were there without turning to look at them. I could hear voices that I recognised from our class or from the playground.

Someone was hovering above me, next to Carina, around that time. I had closed my eyes, so I couldn't see but only sense that there was someone next to her.

Paddy's body was pulled off mine for a second. I remember the relief as soon as his weight was gone. I remember him shouting and hitting out at whoever had lifted him from my body. But in a second he was back again, worse than ever, turning to laugh and curse at who I now realised, by the sound of the voice, was Colm.

I let my eyes flicker open, not believing it until I saw: three boys from school pulling Colm back, and holding him a few feet away. He had been the one to pull Paddy from me. And still he struggled, while they held him back.

It must have been worse than usual, then, because he had never tried to stop things before.

They didn't pull Carina off, though. It was probably another source of fun for them, to watch her try to defend me.

Carina was more upset than I was. She was kicking at Paddy and Jennifer and she even managed to hit Susan a couple of times. I didn't understand, then, how she could do that – how she could be so angry over something that wasn't even happening to her.

Eventually Colm really did see someone. It was Susan's mother, laden with shopping bags, walking towards the cottages. Colm shouted, 'Sketch!'

All of them ran off and left us there. Carina was crying all over me, saying how sorry she was that she hadn't been able to stop them. She carried my bag for me and grasped my hand tightly while we walked.

The rain started again, and I pulled up my school jumper and shirt to see the damage the kick had caused. The skin was reddish, but it didn't look like the bruise would be too bad. I felt my scalp, but they hadn't pulled as much hair as I thought. It felt like chunks had come out, but really it was only a few strands, and I did my best to smooth it down and try to make it look all right. Even though I wasn't hurt all that much, Carina held on to me as if I'd been in a train crash or something, and she sniffled all the way home.

≈

Our mothers and brothers were in the kitchen of the house when we got home that afternoon. I could smell stewing steak simmering, and my mouth watered. The mothers looked around, briefly, from where they stood side-by-side at the sink peeling carrots. They always put the carrots in last. Half an hour or so, I calculated, until they served dinner. My stomach rumbled.

'Have an apple,' said my mother, giggling. She turned back to the sink and she and Therese began to chat. They didn't seem to notice my hair, or the dirt on my clothes. Carina nodded towards the counter. There was an empty wine bottle, and another one was halfway there.

'Told you this morning, didn't I Vivvy,' she said as she grabbed my hand and pulled me from the room. 'It's a chin-up day.'

I never asked her how she always knew. I must have known as well, or at least have begun to know by then. Maybe I just couldn't bring myself to be as blatant as Carina when it came to these things. On that day I was simply thankful that, whatever the reason, the mothers paid almost no attention to us. It meant that I could change my clothes and clean up before dinner.

There were other good things about the days she called the 'chin-up' days. They were always stew days, or lasagne days, or casserole days. They were the days when the mothers drank too much wine while they chopped and cooked, leaving the meat to stew for longer so that it was tender and tasty. They were the days when they stood closer together and chatted more than usual. They'd have magazines, as well, the sort they never usually cared about. They would gossip about this singer's hairstyle or that actor's muscles. For all of the talk they did on those days, it was only ever about the people in the magazines.

When we got back to the kitchen Graham and Michael were laid out on the rug by the fireplace, blond heads close together, playing some game with uncomplicated rules: it involved crashing their toy cars and not much else.

Carina and I sat at the table and began a game of snap while we waited for the food to finish.

Every one of us jumped when the phone rang. Therese was the first to move. She fished about in a small box that sat on the windowsill, took out a set of keys, and ran along the corridor to the room next to the kitchen.

Carina and I went back to our game while Therese unlocked the door and went inside. She probably took less than a minute between answering the phone, locking the door behind her again and returning to the kitchen.

'Who was it?' my mother asked. 'Not for any of us, then?'

Therese shook her head, laughing now that the rush was over. 'It was Mr Toffee Nose of the department of Stick-it-up-your-arse. Wondering if Mr McEvoy would be attending the party at the Mansion House this Friday.'

My mother sniggered. 'Will we get our best frocks out, so?'

Therese threw the carrots into the pot, taking a huge glug of wine with her free hand. 'Oh, to be sure,' she said. 'And remind me to get the jewels out of the safe, while we're at it.'

Therese was seventeen years younger than my mother, but that afternoon they both looked like teenagers.

'We'd cut some swathe if we ever got an invite to one of his parties,' said Pauline. 'Turn some heads, so we would. Mr McEvoy's Little Women.'

I had been about to say 'Snap.' It was there in front of me: the thrill of the victory, my King hovering above Carina's. Instead, we both put our cards down and our eyes met. Mr McEvoy's Little Women. How could they use those words? Those were the nasty words, the taunts that followed us at school every day. My mother said it with a smile. Therese followed it with a giggle.

I left the table and walked to the counter, on the pretence of getting an apple. I had to see their faces. I needed to see _how_ they could smile and giggle. I wanted to understand.

Neither of them looked like me, as they laughed. They didn't look ashamed, the way I did when we were teased. Their faces were just like Carina's. Their eyes were steely and their chins were up, just a few millimetres in the air.
The Barrys

At one time most of the land around our town, including our property, had been owned by the Barrys. Our house had been built for Colm's great-grandmother, by her father, as a wedding gift. I could never quite get my head around it, when we were children. Our house and land seemed vast, to me. The thought of one family having owned almost the entire town was inconceivable.

In my imagination the Barrys had been kings and queens, ruling the town, wearing fine clothes and riding in elegant carriages. I would picture their fall as something of note – some great battle, some terrible tragedy had been their ruin. In truth it happened as most falls do: gradually, in small, sad steps, each day owning a little less than the day before.

My earliest memories of Colm's mother are of how tired she always appeared. When Therese would drive us to and from school for the first few years, she would stop to talk to May Barry along the way, and half-heartedly offer to take Colm in our car.

I used to wonder: what would happen if one day Mrs Barry said yes? Would Colm have to squeeze awkwardly next to me? Would he be teased for travelling with us? Would he kick up a fuss and refuse to go at all?

But May Barry never took Therese up on the offer. She would walk even in the worst weather, so I never did find out what would happen if we drove Colm to school.

From age ten or so, Carina and I were allowed to walk to school by ourselves. For the first few weeks May would chat to us, and Colm would look sullen. As the school gates approached he would run ahead, not wanting to be seen with us, and Mrs Barry would shake her head and try to smile and make a joke of things, saying, 'Wait till ye see, girls. In a few years' time he'll be dying to walk with the pair of ye.'

We hadn't been walking long with May when she took a job in a local slaughterhouse. She worked such long hours there that we hardly ever saw her, and once we stopped walking with her, Colm would keep ahead of or behind us, and both parties would pretend not to notice the other the whole way to school. When we did see May Barry from that point on, it was usually on a Thursday evening.

Shortly after Mr Barry's first animal cruelty fine he took a job at a nearby quarry, where a few of our classmates' fathers worked. Even at ten years old we knew two things about Thursday: we knew that for us it was shopping day; we also knew that, for most people, it was pay day.

Therese would collect us from school and take us to a big supermarket in Cavan town, one that had a newsagent and a book shop close-by, and most weeks she would buy us comics or books.

It was usually on the way home that we would see Mrs Barry, coming out of the pub. Sometimes Mr Barry would follow her and argue with her for a few minutes, until she handed him some of what we guessed was the money she had only just argued away from him.

I always had an urge to get out of the car and go to her. I don't know what I would have done – told her a joke, given her a hug – anything to cheer her up. I was drawn to her for as long as I can remember.

I used to wonder why they were together, Mr and Mrs Barry. She was beautiful, I thought, with auburn hair and smooth pale skin. Mr Barry was shorter, scrawnier, and so much older looking than his wife.

As well as her prettiness, there was a sadness that surrounded her, a dissatisfaction that fascinated me. Thinking about it now, my fascination with her was probably because she _did_ wear her feelings on her face for all to see.

When we got home from those trips, Pauline would ask Therese to relate every detail of where we had been and who we had seen. If we had passed Mrs Barry, they would spend a lot of time talking about her. They would say that Mrs Barry was trying to get her husband's pay packet off him before he spent it all. I was convinced that they secretly enjoyed talking about the Barrys. They used to put on sympathetic tones, but I could detect no genuine sympathy. They seemed happy that someone else was the subject of at least half of the gossip.

I learned, years later, that he hadn't started to drink heavily at that time. Back then if he was in the pub, it was to play cards. And if his wife couldn't find him there, then he was usually in the bookies just a few yards away.

The job in the quarry lasted less than a year. Even Mrs Barry never found out why it ended – whether he was fired, or whether he quit. Colm used to say, in the playground, that his father left the quarry because it was taking him away from the farm for too much time over the summer. Colm was always defending his father when we were children. No matter what happened, no matter how people talked, Colm would put on his proud face, and speak about Mr Barry like he was the best man in the world.

Colm was the only person I knew who seemed sure of what he wanted. When we were really young and we had to write stories about the jobs we wanted to have when we grew up, the other boys would say they wanted to be firemen, or astronauts, or spies like James Bond, but Colm's story would always be the same. He wanted to be a farmer, just like his father. Even when Mr Barry lost more money, and sold more land, Colm's ambition remained the same.

Now, I wonder how he continued to believe for so long.

A while after he left the quarry, Mr Barry bought ten arcade machines. They were fruit machines, the sort that you put coins into before pressing a lever, waiting for the same three symbols to flash in a row to let you know you'd won. He paid some business owners a small rent for having the machines on their premises, so that he could collect the machines' takings, but he convinced two men that they ought to buy the machines from him at a 'knockdown price' so that the gamblers' loss would be their gain.

It soon became clear that the machines were defective. They kept paying out, every single time. Mr Barry tried to fix them but he wasn't successful. The men who had bought the machines were both locals – the man who owned the chipper in town, and the owner of one of the pubs – and they demanded that Mr Barry take the machines back and return their money.

I saw him once, talking to the chipper owner, saying, 'Well, what do you expect me to do about it? Buyer beware, Tony, buyer beware.'

One night we were woken by shouting. The two men had turned up at the Barry farm. The next time I saw Colm's father he had two black eyes. The machines were removed from the pub and the chipper, but Mr Barry didn't take them back to whoever he bought them from, because years later I saw all ten of them sitting in the farmhouse cellar.

After that Mr Barry decided to study reiki, and it was all anybody at school talked about for weeks. Colm was given the nickname 'Warlock Boy' for a little while, although I have no idea what warlocks have to do with reiki. Colm laughed it off and told jokes like, 'Be careful or I'll come over there and massage you to death.'

I wished I could have dealt with things the way he did. Because he acted as if the teasing didn't bother him, people soon stopped making fun of him and turned their attention back to picking on us instead.

Colm told me once that, the year his dad set up the reiki business, there was no central heating for the whole winter. Mr Barry used all of the money to pay for his course and certificate, and to convert part of the farmhouse into a treatment room. I do remember one or two people driving by, probably on their way to get a massage, but Colm told me that they usually left a few minutes after arrival, because the house was so cold.

While Mr Barry was studying reiki, or buying up machines, or whatever happened to be his latest sure thing, the work on the farm was mostly left to Colm and his mother. Even Davey – who was the same age as Graham and Michael – helped out where possible. They seemed to manage things between the three of them, and it wasn't until the year May Barry was hospitalized that the farm really fell apart.

Back then, we didn't know the reason for her being away. I didn't learn until I was older that May miscarried and became ill afterwards with an infection. Colm was ten at the time and was sent, along with Davey, to stay with Mrs Barry's sister who lived just a few miles away.

I can still see it now: the first sheep to die on our lawn. Over the following weeks most of the flock escaped from the Barry farm and died slowly, in local gardens and ditches, or in the middle of the road. By the time they succumbed, most of their fleeces had fallen away and their wasted bodies were covered with lesions. They looked nightmarish.

I don't know who we would have complained to, or what we could have done about it, but my father told us not to say a thing, so we just watched as the crows and the foxes came to eat the carcasses of the sheep in the fields along the lane, day after day, until there was nothing left for them to scavenge.

One ewe got further than the others, and people talked about her for months afterwards – how she had been seen walking through the town, dodging traffic as she journeyed to the schoolyard.

She got there as we were having morning break. She walked up to Colm, slow and unsteady, not bleating. She looked at him, and he looked back, and then she lay down on the tarmac as the bell rang.

Colm cried that day. He managed to hide it well, screwing up his face, looking down at the ground, but I saw how upset he was. I felt that he wasn't crying because he was feeling embarrassed, or ashamed about what had happened. His tears looked as though they came from grief; a sheep dying meant as much to him as a person dying in front of his eyes.

The farm was inspected soon afterwards. The cattle were found to be badly malnourished, and the surviving sheep were diseased. In the papers it said that Mr Barry had told the judge about his personal circumstances – about Mrs Barry being ill, I suppose – and even though it was his second offence, he only received a fine.

Mrs Barry was in hospital for two more weeks, but Colm left his aunt's house and went home to the farm. Carina and I spent hours talking about the situation. We weren't gossiping along with the mothers; we really felt sorry for Colm. We were crazy about animals at that age, and when we saw Colm and the sheep in the schoolyard, Carina's opinion of him changed. She decided that he wasn't like the others. She decided that we had misunderstood him, and that maybe he was more like us than we thought. She brought up the thing that I was too embarrassed to mention.

'And he did try and help you, after all. He dragged Paddy off of you that day. We sort of owe him, in a way.'

I reddened and said, 'Yeah. Not that it did much good, his so-called help. Still. Maybe it's like you say. Maybe he's not as bad as we thought.'

For the first few days we did little more than walk quickly past the farm entrance, pretending we were out for a stroll. We wanted to go in and help him, but we were unsure of how to approach. We spent so many years with him ignoring us, and with us pretending that we didn't notice him. We had no idea how to change the rules of the relationship.

It would have to be done delicately, we decided. And, although we rehearsed how to open a conversation with him (a nonchalant 'Hey, how's it going?' was the way we thought we ought to go), at first all we felt brave enough to do was to sneak onto the farm and spy on him. For days we watched, hiding behind sheds, looking from a distance while he struggled back and forth with barrows full of silage, trying to fatten the cows.

It went on for so long that way – Colm working alone without his father – and we were getting impatient. It was time for us to get over our nerves and approach him.

We took deep breaths and walked boldly through the yard, calling his name until we found him.

He was at a fence a short walk from the house, trying to repair gaps. His hands and arms were bare and, other than nails, a hammer, and what looked like old rusted off-cuts of wire, he had no equipment.

We could see that he'd already cut himself – just small scrapes along his wrists and arms. The sections he was repairing would make little difference, anyway. The entire fence was run so loosely that there were probably dozens of spots from where the animals could escape.

At first we said hi, loudly, but he went on working, ignoring us and making a mess of the fence. We stood and watched and waited, while he grew more frustrated. When he scraped his hand again, Carina spoke up.

'How long are you going to let us stand here like a pair of idiots? Will you let us give you a hand?' she asked.

He shook his head, keeping his back to us. 'Dad's coming,' he said. 'Don't need yis.'

'We could stay till then, though,' I offered. 'You need help, so why not let us help you?'

I don't know if it was the way I said it that annoyed him so much, or if it was simply that I suggested help at all, but he turned around and looked right at me, and shouted, 'Feck off. Just feck off and leave me alone, will ye!'

He turned away again, kicking the fence post and roaring. He picked up a hammer and a nail and stared down at them, in either hand, as if he had forgotten what they were for.

When I think about it, it's like I'm back there. I still feel how his words made my face burn. I still recall how angry I felt when I turned and marched away. If I hadn't been so proud, and taken it so personally, I might have noticed the catch in his voice when he shouted. I might have stayed, despite what he said, and tried to help.

I was yards away when I realised Carina wasn't beside me. I turned back to see her standing a couple of feet away from Colm, opening up her backpack and taking out a bottle of cola and some sandwiches, food we had taken because we thought we would be staying for longer.

She didn't say anything to him, just put the food and the bottle on the ground, and ran to join me. I felt both proud of her and ashamed of myself at that moment. She was doing exactly what I wanted, but couldn't bring myself, to do. I looked at him for a second, to see how he reacted to the food, but he kept his back to us and concentrated on the fence.

We took turns on watch when we got home, sneaking back and forth to a window on our upstairs landing that overlooked the road. Carina was asleep, and I was on lookout, when I saw Mr Barry drive past. I crawled back to bed, glancing at my watch: it was ten past one in the morning.

Carina let out a funny little noise in her sleep, and I watched her eyes flicker beneath their lids. I wanted to wake her, to tell her that Mr Barry had finally arrived home. I let her sleep though, knowing that she only slept deeply on the nights when we shared my room.
The Bungalow

The year we were eleven, Jennifer, Susan and the other girls from our class planned to have a sleepover on Halloween night. They talked about it endlessly over the days leading up to mid-term break. Every time the teacher left the room the same conversation was struck up by the girls, while Carina and I sat with our heads down, pretending to be busy at our schoolwork.

They had managed to get a copy of The Exorcist, and one of Carrie, and they were talking about making a Ouija board and having a séance. It wasn't that I wanted to go to their slumber party. I didn't like any of the girls from school back then, but I still felt left out. TV and books had given me an idea of what slumber parties were like, and I wanted to experience it for real. Pillow fights, trying out make-up and hairstyles, eating too much popcorn and chocolate and ice-cream... I wanted it all.

Even the boys were talking about the sleepover, though not in the same way. During one PE class, while the other girls walked ahead of us towards the football pitch, the boys had a conversation about their plans, not seeming to notice that Carina and I were close by. They intended to knock on the window of Jennifer's house in the middle of the séance, to try and frighten the girls.

'We could have our own sleepover,' I suggested as we walked home on the last day before mid-term.

Carina shrugged. 'Maybe. But it'd just be the two of us, so what'd the difference be between that and any other night I'm allowed in your room?'

I couldn't think of an argument so I moodily agreed, saying, 'S'pose.'

≈

When we got home Sarah was sitting at the kitchen table eating pizza with the boys. We hadn't been expecting her for the holiday, and I ran to her and threw my arms around her. I was embarrassed and annoyed when her body stiffened and her arms stayed at her sides.

I let go of her straight away and went to the fridge. I held the door wide open and kept my face down, taking a long time to look at the contents, so I could hide my expression and wait for my face to cool.

'Where are they?' I heard Carina ask.

'Shopping,' Sarah replied. 'They left as soon as I got here. But they won't be long. They've only gone to get a few things. You know, their idea of necessities, like wine, and a bit more wine. And then maybe a few more bottles of... what's that stuff called again... oh yeah, wine.'

There was a short silence at the table, and then Sarah said, 'Therese rang me at school to tell me he's not coming this week.'

When I thought my face was no longer red, I grabbed a can of cola for me and one for Carina.

Behind me, Sarah stood up and said, 'Ew, I feel a bit off. I'll be back in a sec.'

She rushed upstairs and I sat at the table eating pizza with Carina and the boys, listening to Graham and Michael talk about a pumpkin they'd carved at school that morning. Their teacher had darkened the window of the classroom with black cardboard, and sat the pumpkin in front of it with a candle lighting inside, and Davey Barry had made a ghostly wail that caused everyone in the class to jump.

'Well, except me,' said Graham. 'I knew it was Davey.'

I was only half listening to the conversation, still smarting from how Sarah had reacted to my embrace, so I didn't pay too much attention when the boys began to talk about playing outside.

When Sarah came back downstairs I stopped eating, even though I was still hungry, and I went to my bedroom. I closed the door so that no one would come in, and lay down on my bed.

I was thinking about Sarah, annoyed by the fact that she and Carina seemed to be getting along so well, irritated that Sarah could come back after two months at school, practically ignore me, and then steal Carina away. I wasn't thinking about it in any constructive way. I didn't even let myself think about the obvious reason for the way things were. All I was really doing was sulking, until I heard the laughter outside.

I went over to the window and saw Graham and Michael running around in the garden. They were playing hide and seek and one of them had just found the other.

When I opened the window a little bit I heard Graham say, 'Your turn now,' as he ran off and crouched behind the coal bunker.

Michael stood with his eyes squeezed shut, counting out loud. He got to one hundred and started running around, shouting, 'Here I come, ready or not, keep your place or you'll be caught!'

I think I must have been half-watching and half-sulking still, because I remember feeling shocked when it was Michael's turn to hide again, and I saw him sneaking towards the bungalow and letting himself in through the front door. For a moment I stood and stared, but panic took over and I ran down the stairs, shouting, 'Michael's in the bungalow!'

Sarah and Carina were sitting at the kitchen table flicking through magazines, and they didn't even look up at me. Sarah just said, lazily, 'Yeah, sure he is, Viv.'

'He is. I swear. I just saw him. They're playing hide and seek and he's gone into the bungalow.'

Sarah rolled her eyes. 'There's no way he'd go in there. You must've seen Graham.'

I shook my head and ran to the back door. 'I'd better get him. Pauline'll kill us if she gets back and he's there.'

I felt Sarah's hand on top of mine as I went to press the door handle. ' _I'll_ get him. You stay here.'

I watched her run along the path, around the narrowest section of the lake. I only stood watching for a second or two before I decided to follow. When I got closer I could see Graham, going in through the front door of the bungalow, while Sarah shouted to him, 'Michael better not be in there, Graham!'

Graham went red, but tried to look defiant. He was so short and skinny, but somehow he managed to puff up his chest and say, 'Well, and so what if he is? We're only playing hide and seek.'

When she ran into the house I was only a few steps behind her. She looked back at me and I knew she was angry, and that we would have an argument about it later, but I was so annoyed that I didn't care.

'Shut up!' I shouted before she could say a word. 'Shut up shut up shut up. Carina's _my_ friend. I should be able to visit her house, instead of you getting to all the time. You don't even like her. You don't even like anyone!'

I expected her to react the way she usually did when I complained about the same thing – to call me stupid or spoiled – but she just walked away from me, along the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen, calling, 'Michael, come on home now. The mothers'll be back soon.' Her shoulders hung differently as she walked. Her whole body seemed stiff and tightly held together.

At the time I thought that it was because of me, the way her body language changed in the house. For a moment I felt as if I'd won something, as though she finally agreed that I was right.

I wandered around the open areas of the house at first, building confidence. The kitchen was tiny compared to ours, reminding me of kitchens in flats I'd seen on TV, with just the basics: a spotless kettle, a toaster without a single crumb.

I opened the fridge door and saw only a pint of milk. The foil lid had been pulled open, and a small amount was gone from the bottle. The milk looked thick and yellowish. I picked it up and sniffed it, and had to put a hand to my mouth to stop myself from getting sick. I placed the bottle straight back onto its shelf, noting the date I had seen on the lid. The milk had been there for five months.

I sat for a moment, trying to force the nausea down. On the kitchen windowsill I saw a wooden box, exactly like the one that sat on ours. I stood up and peeped in. There were three keys, laid out neatly on the velvet-lined bottom of the box. Each key had a plastic label attached, and on each label there was a small, perfectly printed number: 1, 2, 3.

I rushed from the kitchen and past the rest of the rooms, all with open doors, until I came to the only one that was closed. I found myself standing still again, when just a moment earlier I had wanted to run from the house.

I considered things for a few seconds – sure, we weren't supposed to open closed doors, but I had already broken the biggest rule, so why not break one more? If it was locked, I decided, then I would not go back to the kitchen to search for the right key. I would leave the room alone, and I would leave the house. But if it was unlocked...

I eased open the door, and the matter was decided. I took a deep breath before I walked into Carina's bedroom. I sat on her bed, looking around. It felt so different being in the room instead of looking at it from across the lake. It was slightly bigger than I had thought. The bed was larger than mine, and she had even more books than I had been able to see from my room. There were shelves and wardrobes either side of the windows that I couldn't have seen from my vantage.

I bounced up and down to test if her bed was comfier, but soon got annoyed when I found that it was, so I went to the window. I suppose I thought that I would be able to see my room from here as clearly as I could see hers from mine, but there were so many windows – my room, Sarah's room, Michael's bedroom, and three others that we hardly ever went into. It took me a few seconds to make out which one was mine.

Once I'd settled on the right window I stood awkwardly, craning my neck, trying to see over the shrubbery and gauge how much of my room she could see, but I couldn't make out much of anything.

Maybe if it was evening, maybe if my light was on, then I could see things more clearly, but I didn't think so. I was just about to give up when I noticed a flash of movement across the windowpane, as though something had been reflected there. I swivelled my head and I saw just the barest blur in the hallway as the door slammed shut. A key turned in the lock.

Footsteps ran towards the front door and I heard it open and close. I looked through the window and still saw no one. I couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from, but I heard my mother's voice somewhere outside, calling, 'Michael! Mikey, where are you?'

'Sarah!' I screamed. 'Quick, Pauline's coming. Let me out.'

I couldn't hear any movement in the house, and after a while of shaking the door handle and crying for Sarah, I sat down on the bed and waited.

The house around me felt huge and silent. I couldn't hear my mother outside any more. I couldn't hear or see anyone.

I feel selfish when I remember the fear that I experienced then. The bargains I made with fate, with God, with the devil – with anyone I could think of – are my shame to this day. But I would have traded anything, then, to be out of that room, to not have to experience what I didn't fully understand.

The conflict wasn't lost on me: so many times I wanted to be Carina, to swap places with her, but being in her room filled me with dread, made me want _my_ life, or anyone's life but hers.

I ignored my own contradictions and kept bargaining, kept begging. My nose filled with snot and my chest heaved. At one point I think I hyperventilated. I thought about screaming for Sarah again, but couldn't. The bookshelves seemed to be moving, inching across the floor towards me, making the room tiny. The air was leaving. I felt sure that the air was disappearing, and I went to the window, but it was locked and I couldn't see a key. I pushed at the handle, hoping I could make it come loose, but then I worried about the trouble I would get into if I broke the lock, so I sat back down on the bed again, gulping in mouthfuls of air that felt dead, vacant, air that felt like it was repelling the real oxygen from my lungs.

I probably wasn't in there for very long, but it felt like hours. When I heard the key turn in the lock I thought at first I was imagining it, because no one pushed the door open. No one said a thing. There was just the clunking sound of metal moving. When I decided that it must have been what I thought, I rushed to the door and pulled it open. There was no one standing there or anywhere in the corridor. There wasn't even a key on the other side of the door. I thought I heard what could have been the back door slamming, but I wasn't sure.

I ran to the front door, thinking that if I ran out that way I might head off whoever it had been, but the door seemed to have been double-locked, and the mechanism was different from ours so I didn't know how to get it open. Anyone else could have opened it, most likely, but my hands shook and shook as I tried to ignore the fearful thoughts that were taking over. Was I alone, now? Had the bedroom door been unlocked to taunt me, to tease me into false relief? Was I locked in here for ever?

I ran back through the house and to the kitchen. I didn't want to stop there. I wanted to wrench open the back door, to run out into the air, but my steps slowed, and my gaze pulled towards the windowsill, to the wooden box.

It might have looked the same. The house was so clean, not a speck of dust, so I don't know if the box really looked like it had been moved a little to the front of the sill. I don't know if the order of the keys had really changed to 3, 1, 2, instead of the way they had lain before. It could have been my imagination that made me see things that way and, after all, the print was small, and I was afraid to look too closely.

I tried the handle of the back door and it turned easily, but my heart and breathing stopped, and instead of pulling it open I hesitated. Someone would be standing there. Someone would be standing, and staring. They would let their mouth smirk, ever so slightly, and say, 'You didn't think you'd get out that easily, did you?' It would be Sarah. It would be Pauline. It would be Therese or Carina. It would be a sewn-together, Frankenstein's monster of all four.

When I did pull the door open I was looking at air. No one stood there. No one smirked. No one sent me back inside.

'Sarah?' I called. 'Michael?'

I walked all around the outside of the house, peering into the shrubbery and even back in through the windows. Eventually I gave up and went home.

In the kitchen the mothers stood at the counter. Therese's shoulders were hunched and her face was almost purple. Carina and Graham were standing close to her, clutching her either hand.

Pauline was looking at them, but whatever they had been saying, they stopped, and Pauline changed from glaring at them to glaring at me. 'Get upstairs,' she said. 'Now.'

'Where's Sarah and –'

'What did I say? I said get upstairs, Vivienne. Don't test me.'

I scuttled out of the kitchen, sneaking looks back at Carina until I was out of sight. When I got upstairs Michael's bedroom door was open, and he was standing in front of his bed with just his underwear on, while Sarah rubbed something onto his upper thigh. I walked to the door, asking, 'What's wrong?'

'I'm rubbing arnica on. He fell,' Sarah said. 'That's all. You shouldn't have gone over. Neither of you.'

'Someone locked me in.'

Sarah said nothing. Michael winced as she massaged the bruise on the back of his thigh, and I went into my room and shut the door. I walked straight to the window and watched as Therese, Carina and Graham made their way around the lake.

They stayed in the bungalow for almost the whole of mid-term and, apart from one moonlit night, I didn't see Carina again until the day before we went back to school.
It

I have trouble sleeping when the moon is full, even now. These days I tell myself that it's just because of the light, but as a child I was convinced there were other reasons, supernatural reasons, why so many of us lie awake on moonlit nights.

Towards the end of that mid-term break it came, round and full, making night seem like day, stealing sleep away.

When I paced my room during full moon, I tried to do it quietly. I had decided years earlier that night was no time to call attention to myself. Sitting up reading or writing was never an option on those nights. Excitement and impatience reigned and I invariably went to the window.

Most full moons I would watch the lake, and wait for the moon to be positioned so that it cast its reflection on the water and turned the lake to silver. For months before that Halloween I had tried to break the habit, telling myself I was too old for fantasies, telling myself it was silliness to think of Carina's childhood stories of our Little Lake enchanted, or the night filled with magic.

Full moon is when the water reaches up to court the sky, she used to say. She told me that the water on the planet feels the pull of the moon just like we do. But our lake was extra special. Our lake did not simply court the sky. Our lake allowed us to do the same. If you were in that water at just the right time, you could feel the lake stretch up, you could stand upon its surface as it became a silver dance floor. And if, while twirling upon the water, you were brave enough to reach your arms upwards, then you could even touch the moon.

I thought I was too grown up for such stories that year, but Halloween had done something odd to me. Maybe it was the ghoulish aspect of the holiday, or maybe it was because of going to the bungalow. I felt the need to return to those tales, to fantasies, to anything that would occupy my mind. I was peevishly reluctant to let my mind settle on the stories that Carina created, so instead I thought of stories I had read myself, stories that were nothing to do with Carina.

The story I chose to think of that night was The Twelve Dancing Princesses. It was a Grimms' fairy tale I had read years earlier. The story was about twelve princesses who sneaked out each night, rowed across a lake with twelve princes, and went dancing in a castle underground.

Each morning their shoes would be worn badly, with holes in the soles, and their father the king wanted to discover why. I didn't dwell on the end of the story – where a soldier wearing an invisibility cloak discovers what the princesses are up to, and his reward is to marry the eldest princess and become king. I hated that part. I hated the thought that their adventures had to end, and that the eldest princess was stuck with a sneaky soldier instead of her dancing prince.

Instead I thought of the earlier parts of the story as never-ending. I was one of the princesses, and the lake I rowed across was our Little Lake, on my way to an underground castle with my own handsome prince. In my imagination he had blond hair, blue eyes and elfin ears, and we danced the whole night long until my shoes were threadbare.

That night I had music playing in my mind and I danced as silently as I could, turning circles on my bedroom carpet with my arms wrapped around a prince made of air.

I was jogged from the fantasy by the sound of movement in Sarah's room. I couldn't quite make up my mind as to what the sound had been: a cry or a laugh? It stopped abruptly, and for a while the house was silent again.

Maybe she was listening, like I was, trying to hear if her noise-making had woken anybody else.

I held my breath, standing so still, not wanting to sit on my bed in case the springs squealed. I must have been successful, because after a few minutes I heard her again, this time easing open her bedroom door and padding down the stairs.

My first thought was one of anger: she was going to the bungalow, I was sure of it; she was sneaking over to have a midnight meeting with Carina. I had been warned to stay away. Michael had been warned to stay away. But Sarah, it seemed, was free to do as she pleased.

I thought about following her, catching her and Carina together and then... what? I stood to the side of my window so that I would be out of sight, while I tried to think of what to do next. What could I say to them that wouldn't sound pathetic?

'Aha! So you two are sneaking around behind my back again, I see.'

That would just make them happy. They would feel like they were important, and they would laugh at how jealous I was, how needy I was. Sarah would call me stupid and spoiled, as usual. There was no way I could let them know how I felt. Better to pretend I didn't care.

Anyway, what if it wasn't Carina she was sneaking off to meet? What if Sarah had a prince, like in my fantasy, someone she could talk to and dance with, someone with whom she could be happy? Okay, not an actual prince, obviously, but a boyfriend, maybe. It wasn't impossible. She was pretty. She was sulky and unfriendly, but she was definitely pretty.

After standing and looking for some time I saw her walking towards the lake. She was moving slowly and her body was bent almost double. I looked at my watch and saw that it was just past midnight.

For hours I stood by the window, my eyes blinking, tired only because I now _wanted_ to stay awake.

It wasn't until three o'clock when I saw her again.

She was still moving slowly and awkwardly, and she was making her way out from a clump of trees and walking towards the bungalow. As she crouched below Carina's bedroom window, I saw that there was something in her arms. It could have been anything – a bundle of clothes, a bag filled with food – and yet I think knew it wasn't just anything.

Holding it tightly, she reached an arm out, and she must have rapped on the window, because a few seconds later Carina emerged from the bungalow and ran towards Sarah.

Carina's hand moved to her mouth, as if she was surprised by whatever she saw. Then she leant closer and touched the thing in Sarah's arms. As soon as she touched it she reeled back in shock.

Then she put and arm around Sarah's shoulder. For a little while they stood with their foreheads pressed together and their shoulders shaking as if from sobbing, until Sarah drew away.

After that they seemed to be arguing. Carina's hands were waving wildly. She was shaking her head, and every now and then reaching for Sarah's bundle. After a minute Sarah began to rush away, around the lake in the direction of the gazebo. Carina was running behind, trying to grab at Sarah, maybe trying to stop her, to hold her back.

I couldn't see them any more and my mind was racing, wondering if I should follow, wondering if I should call someone.

As soon as I had the thought, I knew that calling one of the mothers would be the worst thing I could do. Carina and Sarah weren't meeting to chat about boys, or make-up. They weren't doing anything that they should be punished for, or caught in the midst of. They were only doing as they always did: sharing secrets that were none of my business.

After a while I left my bedroom quietly, making sure not to let my foot touch the creaking step as I went downstairs holding my shoes in my hands. Once I got downstairs I put on the shoes, and then found the warmest coat I could to put on over my pyjamas.

The back door was open and I went outside, walking around the lake to the gazebo. It was time, I decided. It was time for me to say it: not petulantly, not childishly. It was time for me to grow up, and make them talk to me properly.

I was all worked up, I remember, striding around the lake with my arms swinging, almost sure of what I had seen. I mean, after all, didn't Sarah and Carina know that I was mature now? I read magazines. I read the problem pages, just like they did. And I hadn't done what they would have expected me to, had I? I hadn't called the mothers. I could be trusted. I could be part of their secret. I could help.

I was almost there when I heard splashing. It was erratic and loud, and without thinking I began to run. When I got to a point where I could see the gazebo, there was nobody there. I stood, looking at the sheen the moon had cast on the water, looking at the ripples on the surface of the lake, just a few feet away from the bank where the rowing boat was moored.

And then I heard Sarah's sobs, and ran towards the sound. The two of them were ahead of me, walking through the trees, moving towards the driveway. I stopped behind a tree and watched as they emerged onto the tarmac. Sarah's voice came clearly as she said, 'Thanks for stopping me, Carrie.'

Carina replied, softly, 'You couldn't have done it. Whether I was there or not. You would have stopped yourself.'

'Dunno about that,' Sarah said. 'All I know is I just... I won't be like Therese. I can't end up like that.'

Carina's voice was lower this time; it was just a hoarse whisper, really, as she said, 'I know. Me neither.'

That was the last I heard, as they walked out onto the lane and went in the direction of the town.

I still wanted to follow them. I still wanted to make them speak to me, to make them tell me everything. For a few seconds I moved after them, in the direction of the road. But the moon hid behind a passing cloud and it became difficult to see.

The woods seemed huge then. Suddenly they were a jungle, and the trees were all I could see. Something in me began to shift. Whatever illusion I had been under, it disappeared. The voice that had been at the back of my mind for so long returned, and warned me: you don't really want to know.

It took me a long time to get home. I kept wandering into patches of bramble and getting my pyjamas caught on the thorns. At one point I tripped and fell onto the ground, and I just sat there for a while, not able to make myself get up. What was really only a small piece of forest, a few acres at most, seemed vast. I knew that all I had to do was find the lake. This forest was known to me, inch by inch. There should be no difficulty.

I probably would have been stuck there for much longer, but through the trees I saw a light turn on in the house. I thought: if I go back, I can make some excuse. I can tell them Sarah's gone out for fresh air. I can say we both felt ill. I can be her cover.

So I ran, back to the house, quietly pushing open the back door and hearing the toilet flush upstairs. I listened as whoever it was went back to bed, and then I made my way up to my bedroom.

I stayed awake all night, although there wasn't much of the night left by then. I lay on top of the covers of my bed, forcing myself to stay alert.

Reading was no good, because I found my attention drifting and my eyes beginning to close. I tried reciting poems I learned at school, or remembering facts from Geography and History lessons. Even with those measures, I nodded off one or two times, and it was only the sound of the bin truck outside that stirred me.

It was half past six, and as I listened to the truck move away from the house, I heard Sarah's bedroom door, closing softly as she returned. I went to the window and looked across the lake, and saw Carina walking around to the back of the bungalow.

≈

People talked about it for a long time afterwards, but as far as I know the truth was never discovered. The next morning the supermarket manager found him, outside the doors as he opened the shop to let the bread man in with the morning's delivery.

It was six a.m. – the manager was adamant and obsessed with that point, and would include it every time he told the story. And he told the story a lot: to the gardaí, to the newspaper and local radio reporters, and to every single customer who went into the supermarket over the following months. It was six a.m., he hadn't even had a cup of tea yet, and there it was: a trolley, right in front of the doorway.

'Bloody kids,' he muttered, and went to push the trolley out of the way, hesitating as he noticed something inside. It was wrapped in a red tracksuit top, he told everybody, with its tiny head poking out, barely recognisable as what it was.

When he picked it up he thought it was dead. In the newspaper article, and when he spoke to a reporter from the radio station, he kept saying 'it.' Even when we all knew that it was a baby boy, months premature and barely alive, he continued to say 'it.'

As he held it in his arms he saw some girls, two of them, young looking and blonde, running out from a doorway across the street. He called for them to come back, but they kept on running.

≈

Sarah staying in her room was nothing unusual. Had I not seen them that night, I would probably have noticed nothing different in her behaviour. I mean, until that night, I hadn't thought anything of her being ill. She hadn't looked pregnant – although with her usual outfits of baggy tops, jeans, and tracksuits, it could have been disguised.

I don't know if the mothers knew anything about the abandoned baby. Therese was still over at the bungalow, and Pauline was drinking a lot. She didn't even care if we ate chocolate and crisps for breakfast. There was no indication that she noticed the way Sarah suddenly began listening to the local radio station. There was no indication that Pauline noticed anything at all.

On the Sunday before we all returned to school, Therese, Carina and Graham came over at breakfast time. They brought doughnuts that Therese had got up early to buy, and the kids sat eating them at the kitchen table, while Therese and Pauline went off into another room.

As soon as they left, Sarah sprang from her chair and turned up the volume on the radio. A few minutes later the newsreader informed us (as she had being doing for days) that the gardaí were asking for the mother to come forward. She would not be punished, the newsreader assured us, but she would be given the care, the understanding, and the medical attention that she surely must need.

The baby, the newsreader told us, was 'through the worst of it and doing fine.' And as we listened, the small smile that Sarah cast in Carina's direction was seen by no one but me.
Cocks and Hens

Linear, I told myself. How could I have imagined that it would be easier to go against the way of memory? How could I have imagined that I could think through it step by step, when there is so much? A hundred more incidents, a thousand more occurrences. If I sit and think – _really_ think – about it, there is just too much to recall. There is more still that I don't care to recall. So I'm jumping forward. I can allow myself that. Because they're there, anyway, these memories. Even if I don't bring them right to the forefront, even if I don't want to relive every detail, they're there.

School, then. I'll concentrate on memories relating to school, for a while. Home only ever got harder, but at school things did change. During the earlier years each day was as bad as the one before, but as we got older the teasing and bullying began to ease off. It was when we were in sixth class that things really began to improve, and as this happened it gave us – or Carina, anyway – a life separate from our home, for a while.

Carina had never really been the target, anyway. I sometimes wonder if, had she not been so intent on staying by my side and sticking up for me, she would ever have been bullied at all. She was one of those girls, you see. If she had come up to you and said, 'Yes, it is true that I was a serial killer for years, but that's all in the past,' well then you would have forgiven her. She wouldn't even have to bat her long lashes, or flick her dirty blonde hair. She never had to do any of that. When someone is that beautiful, they don't need to remind you. It's there, every time you look. Despite all of the gossip that went around about our family, if it was just Carina by herself, and not defending me and the boys all the time, she probably would have been the most popular girl in school.

Our little brothers started third class when we were in sixth class. It was the first year that the four of us were in the upper primary school block together. The building was only separated from the lower primary block by a strip of grass, but I could see that, to Graham and Michael, it felt as if they were entering a different world. They were so like Carina and me on their first day. They stood in the playground with their shoulders hunched, talking amongst themselves.

Carina looked after them from the beginning. She stood in line with them each morning and walked them to their classroom, talked to them at break times, and even got into fights on their behalf. Well, obviously she didn't punch the little nine-year-olds who had punched our brothers, but she would go up to their older brothers and sisters, and make sure that the bullying stopped.

It was close to the end of the school year, and things had gone along quite well until Davey Barry, Colm's younger brother, decided to start things up again. Having grown up on a farm, Davey knew all about the birds and the bees. And the rams and the ewes. And the cocks and the hens.

We didn't hear the original comment, because it had started in the classroom while the boys were supposed to be painting farmyard pictures. It wasn't until after school that we noticed how quiet they were.

It was just the four of us in the kitchen at the time. The mothers had driven off somewhere in the car just as we got home from school, and I was heating up soup for our dinner.

Carina asked them what was wrong, and for a while they tried to tell us that it was nothing, that they were fine.

Eventually Graham said, 'When we were drawing the chickens, Davey asked me if I was a cock, or if I was one of the hens like you. What did he mean, Carrie?'

Carina looked straight at me.

I dropped a tea-towel onto the ring of the cooker and didn't notice that it was burning until it started to smell.

'Never mind what he said,' Carina told the boys. 'Did he do anything?'

'He said they're all goin' ta get me and Michael. Davey and all the other boys are going to fight us at the lake tomorrow after school, the lake near the school. They said if we lose, then they'll know we're hens, like you girls.'

I opened the window wide to try to get rid of the burning smell, and I stood there, just breathing in the outside air for a few moments while the silence seemed to grow, to actually grow, in the room.

Eventually I ran the tea-towel under the tap, but it was too charred to save so I gave up on it, throwing it into the bin and serving the soup while Carina sat quietly.

None of us ate much. The boys buttered bread, broke it up and put it into their bowls, and let it swell.

After a while Carina went to where the jackets were hanging on the back of the kitchen door. She grabbed the boys' jackets and tossed them on the table. 'Put them on,' she said. 'Pauline'll kill me if ye catch colds.' She glanced at me and said, 'You can come too.'

'Where are we going?' Michael asked, looking frightened.

'To the farm.' She spoke firmly, without the slightest quiver in her voice.

Because of the hours Mrs Barry worked, and the fact that Mr Barry was hardly ever there, it was a safe bet that the kids would be alone at the farm. But the expression Carina held told me that she wouldn't have cared whether or not the parents were home.

She marched the whole way, and we travelled in a line like soldiers, with Graham and Michael in the middle and me bringing up the rear. When we got to the yard she looked around quickly and headed for the house.

You could tell that that the Barrys' front door had been grand, when the house was new. It was wide and arched and had the name of the family written above. By the time we were growing up, most of the lettering had faded and you could barely make out the name. The varnish on the door itself, and on the archway surrounding it, was peeling, looking almost like sunburned skin.

There was a doorbell, but we didn't find out until later that it hadn't worked for years. That day, Carina tried pressing it about a dozen times before she gave up and began to bang on the door with the back of her hand.

It took a minute for Colm to answer. When he pulled the door open, Davey was standing behind him.

Carina scowled.

That was the moment our relationship with Colm Barry changed.

It was almost the end of the school year, and there had been a spell of heat for about a fortnight. We were both still wearing our uniform skirts, and they had become gradually shorter over the year. On me, this hardly mattered. Not that I was ugly or anything. It was just that... Okay, maybe if you saw me standing by myself, then you might say, 'There's a pretty girl.' But if I was standing next to Carina, you wouldn't say anything. You wouldn't even see me. You'd just see her, the way Colm did that day.

She was slightly pale, but it suited her. She was skinny, but not everywhere. She already had a little bit of a chest, and her legs weren't stringy like mine were at twelve. Carina's legs were long but shapely. And because we'd tied our school shirts at the waist to cool ourselves, there were gaps between our tops and skirts so you could see Carina's belly, and how it concaved a little bit.

It was her hips though, that Colm gawked at for what felt like minutes. They were wide, and the bones slightly jutted out. It's hard to describe how beautiful her hips were, even at that age. I'm sure someone's worked out a science behind it – the width of the hips compared to the width of the waist or something like that. I understood why Colm was staring. He stood there for a while, not able to get any words out. It was getting breezy, and her hair was blowing around her face, with the sun shining behind her. I think we were all stunned, that afternoon, by the sight of Carina on Colm's doorstep. The green of her eyes was so pale that sometimes they looked almost grey, but that day they were greener than ever, as she narrowed them, and began to speak.

'I might just be a _hen_ to you, Colm Barry,' she said. 'Maybe all girls are just birds to arseholes like you. But whoever's teaching that little shite there to talk the way he does better shut up and start teaching him some sense instead, all right?'

Colm stared at her for a second or two, his expression wavering between confusion and admiration, before he spoke. 'What? What are you talking about? I'd never call you a bird. Or a hen. Or whatever.' He looked at Davey. 'Davey, you little bollocks, you better not be calling Carina names. If you've been slagging her off, it's some dig you'll be getting.'

Davey, not yet influenced by the charms of women, looked defiant. 'I never.'

'No, he didn't call _me_ names,' Carina corrected. 'He started on my brothers. Our brothers, I mean. Mine and Vivvy's. If he says one word wrong to these two again, I swear to Christ, Colm Barry, I'll batter you black and blue. And don't think I can't.'

Colm blushed. 'He won't say anything, I swear,' he said. 'And he's sorry, aren't you Davey?'

'No,' said Davey, shaking his head.

Colm glared down at his little brother. 'Say you're sorry to Graham and Michael,' he said through gritted teeth. 'And swear you won't hassle them ever again – you _or_ any of your little toe-rag friends. Swear or your life won't be worth living. And you know I mean it.'

Davey wrinkled his nose and looked at the ground. 'I won't hassle ye ever again,' he said, before running back inside.

'I'll keep an eye out,' Colm told us. 'Tell me if he does anything again. Says anything, whatever. I'll sort him out.'

I think that, for a moment, Carina was surprised at how easily Colm had agreed. She even seemed a little disappointed that she didn't need to argue any further. She had been prepared for more of an ordeal, ready to fight, and now it was all over before she really got going.

'Yeah. Well... good. Thanks,' she managed to say, turning away from the door.

We all went to leave along with her, and I was just about to say something to Carina about the way Colm had looked at her when I noticed him stepping out of his house and closing the door behind him. He followed us through the yard and back along the road as far as our front gate, talking to Graham and Michael and Carina while we walked. Well, he was talking to all of us, really, it's just that I was the only one who didn't talk back.

When we went inside, my mother and Therese were in the kitchen. There was a short interrogation about where we'd been, and we all swore that we'd been out for a walk together because it was such a nice afternoon. They believed us, I think, because they said that Carina and I could go out on the lake if we wanted.

Our rowing had improved by that time, although I don't think that the mothers were ever worried about our abilities. We stayed on the lake for a while, just going around in circles. Carina rowed at first, and then I took a turn. I wondered, as I took the oars from her, how it was that they could have let us out on the lake by ourselves when we were younger. The rules were so different for Graham and Michael. The boys were never allowed near the water by themselves.

I got a really good stroke going and tried to relax into the rhythm. I loved rowing – it was like a meditation to me, usually. Most days, after a little while I could almost forget where I was, I could forget everything but the action of my arms and shoulders, the strength of my stomach, the movement of the water. It wasn't coming to me that afternoon. I was watching Carina while she sat back, trailing her fingers through the water. She was staring ahead, looking past me and all around the lake, and her eyes were the way I wished mine could be – as if she'd found something to mesmerize her, as if she wasn't with me at all.

I thought we would talk about Colm, but we were out for over half an hour, and she still hadn't said a word. I don't know if I was annoyed, if I felt lonely or jealous or just plain spiteful. I don't know what was wrong with me, really, when I said, 'We never go out on the gazebo any more.'

She looked right at me with hard eyes and said, 'We've been out here for ages. Give me the oars so I can row us back sometime this year.'
Backdrops

During most of fifth and sixth class I tried to lose myself in stories the way that Carina could. I read and read, and then wrote and wrote, trying to make other places for myself, for Carina, for all of us. I always gave the characters different names, but anyone would have known that they were us.

I knew that I didn't have her gift with words. Even I could see that my stories were over-the-top. It was a compulsion of mine that the setting, and especially the weather, had to represent something in every story I wrote. Happy times would come with warm days or, at a push, would take place in front of blazing fires. When I was in a dark mood, my stories were dark. The plots would involve Carina and me coming to blows on windswept hills, shouting and crying as loud as the wind, saying things we never said in reality. Those were the stories I destroyed, carefully and secretly in the fire while the others slept.

I spent so much time in stories back then, so it always disappointed me when life didn't follow art. In reality bad things happened on pleasant days, and great times could be had in the midst of a thunderstorm.

When I think of the shifts that occurred over the summer following sixth class, I think of them as delicate, and I can't help but remember the way I would use weather in my earliest stories. I feel that I ought to be remembering those shifts occurring alongside mild warmth and hazy light. I want to remember mists, and the lake shrouded. But it was a summer like all Irish summers, of wild changes in the weather that don't quite sit right with the events I'm recalling. There were periods of a fortnight or so where the sun shone from morning till night, and everyone in the town spent a fortune on plants and garden furniture and brand new barbecues. Then the rain came for weeks on end. The kettle barbecues rusted, the garden furniture accommodated little other than insects, and the plants in the gardens were strangled by weeds. That's the sort of summer it really was, and to me it seemed no decent backdrop.

When I was younger my father spent almost the whole of the summer holidays in Cavan. For a few hours each morning he would work from his office with the door firmly shut, and the rest of his day would be spent with the family.

If the weather was good enough we would eat on the lawn or at the patio table. We would play badminton and football in our garden, and some of us might get to go out on Little Lake with him.

The best days were the days when the whole family took trips together. There were a few occasions when we went to a mobile home in Bettystown, and I remember once going to see the waterfall at Powerscourt in Wicklow. Mostly, though, our trips were to one of the bigger lakes in Cavan. He would take his boat, and we would have a picnic and spend almost the whole day there.

I expected that summer to be just the same, and I tried to start conversations with Carina about where we might go that year. I had been reading about the Giant's Causeway. I thought that, even though it was further than we normally went, if we both asked then maybe we could go there. Carina never looked forward to summer the way that I did, but the Giant's Causeway seemed like something she would love, partially because she would find it interesting, but mostly because coastal trips were her favourite.

She didn't say anything much when I suggested it, but there was something about the way she raised her eyebrows and smiled and agreed. It reminded me of the way she treated the boys, when they talked about becoming secret agents when they grew up. I was irritated with the way she acted, but I didn't want to cause an argument, not with the holidays so close, so I pretended I hadn't noticed and went on with researching the trip.

Carina and I both got our periods that year, just before the holidays began. Mine arrived a week after Carina's, and I hated it so much. I was self-conscious and uncomfortable all the time. I dreaded having to throw sanitary towels into the bin in case the boys would see them and make fun of me. And I was so much hotter at night times, when it came. Carina didn't seem to mind. She did once say, 'Oh well, at least I can use it as an excuse if Colm gets too handsy.'

For the last few weeks of term, school had been a different place for all of us. Colm must have said something to the people in our class, I think, because everyone treated us almost as if we were normal. I suppose Carina thought he ought to be rewarded for not being a huge stinking bully any longer, because when he asked her to meet him one evening by the lake near school, she agreed.

We didn't know if we'd be able to get out of the house. Going out on our lake was fine, but going any further was never as easy. It was Friday night, it was the beginning of the holidays, and I had been sure that my father would be coming home. When we arrived home after our last day of primary school, my mother and Therese were on their third bottle of wine, a sure sign that he was not expected.

I pretended to be as pleased as Carina was when it began to look like she could meet with Colm, but in truth I was feeling disappointed that my summer wasn't beginning as I hoped.

She asked the mothers if we could take the boys to the lake to go bird-watching. It was something the boys loved to do, and because the mothers were a bit drunk they agreed.

It sounds idyllic – boys who love bird-watching – but the reality wasn't quite so sweet. The previous Christmas, Graham and Michael had been a given remote controlled boat as a present. It was quite a big boat, and they liked to take it to the lake, place it gently on the water, and tiptoe away. They would hide at a distance until a duck got close to the boat, and then the boys would start up the engine with their remote control and frighten the duck near to death. They thought it was hilarious.

Usually, Carina would be really annoyed with them if she caught them playing that game. She loved the boys and babied them more than I did, but she would shout at them any time she caught them doing something cruel. That evening though, she promised them they could do anything they liked as long as they kept quiet about what happened at the lake.

The whole thing was going to have to be a bit of a rush, because we were told to have the boys back by seven, and we were supposed to be meeting Colm at just after six.

We knew that it would be quiet there. That lake always had a funny feeling about it, and no one ever stayed for long. It might as well have been private, like ours, because the air was as unwelcoming. It's possible that I hated it so much because it was the scene of so much of my after-school misery, but I don't think that was the only reason. Sometimes you might see a couple stop there, in their car. They would pull into the one tiny parking space, get out, walk around for a minute or two, then get back into their car and drive off again almost immediately.

There was a slipway, and a small pier where you could stand and fish, but I never once saw anybody fish there.

Carina wore sandals and shorts that evening, with a light green T-shirt. Her hair was loose and smelled of the orange-scented conditioner she had used. We both had make-up on, although I only wore it because she said that, that way, she wouldn't feel as self-conscious. It was just lip-gloss and clear mascara, but it was more than either of us had worn before. We bought it on the way home from school with money we had claimed we needed to give to the teacher for the end-of-year party. We put it on each other before we left the house but, looking back, I can't believe we really thought that the mothers wouldn't notice if it was clear mascara and lip-gloss. If it _was_ practically invisible, then what was the point in wearing it at all? It was exciting, though. I don't know why, but it was thrilling, putting on that make-up for the first time, and then hiding it underneath my bed in the hope that the mothers wouldn't discover our stash.

When we got to the lake Carina was shaking a little. We didn't talk much because the boys were with us, but I know that she was as scared as I was about what about what would happen if the boys reported back to the mothers. I didn't think they would say anything maliciously, but I was afraid that they might blurt something by accident.

We could see Colm on the other side to us, where there was some stony ground that made a beach of sorts. He was sitting on what looked, from that distance, like a tree stump. He gave a little wave when he saw us. Carina turned to me, raising her eyebrows as if to ask me if she should go. I just nodded and tried to smile, because I didn't want to say anything in front of Graham and Michael. I took them to the slipway while she walked slowly around to the other side.

I helped the boys set the boat in the water, but all the time I was looking over at Carina. Colm was standing up as she approached, and as they drew close together I realised that he had grown taller over the last few months, so that now he was the same height as Carina. They chatted for a few minutes before walking away into the little wooded area on that side of the lake. I kept staring over until I couldn't see them any more.

It wasn't long before the boys found a victim, and I crouched down with them while they started their boat engine. It was a swan they chose to terrorise, and I wanted to tell them it wasn't a good idea, but I said nothing. I watched while the huge white wings went outwards, the graceful neck arched, and the long beak opened as the swan hissed at the boys. The swan flew to the other side of the lake, and the boys laughed out loud, stopped the engine, and crouched down again, ready for round two.

I was surprised that they'd gotten off so lightly. They didn't deserve to, and even if the swan had let them away with it, I knew I ought to be shouting at them, telling them they were being mean, nasty idiots. All I could do, though, was keep looking at my watch and glancing over at the trees, wishing I could check that she was all right.

I couldn't leave the boys alone at the water and, anyway, I felt far too strange to do anything. I think, even if the boys hadn't been there, I wouldn't have been able to go after Carina that afternoon.

Looking at the woodland terrified me. At first I tried to shake the fear off, telling myself it was because of what I had seen the year before. But there was something beneath that memory, and I didn't know what. I really didn't, then. Even on the night I had watched Carina and Sarah, there had been something beneath the obvious fear. It's possible that, with hindsight, I'm adding feelings and thoughts that weren't really there, but I don't think so. My legs were weak the whole time I waited for Carina. If she had screamed, if she had cried, I wouldn't have been able to do a thing.

When they came out of the woods about forty-five minutes later, Colm was holding Carina's hand. As they drew closer she said something to him, and he nodded and let go. He walked with us a bit of the way through the town, but he went into a shop and said he'd wait for a while before going home himself. We talked about it as if we were on a covert mission. It wouldn't have been unusual for Colm to walk us to our gate, seeing as we had all started walking to and from school together over the past few weeks, but we decided that this was different. This was a secret. This was something the mothers must never know.

≈

It wasn't until later that we had a chance to talk about what had happened at the lake. Carina didn't want to sleep alone that night, so she shared my room. A couple of years earlier we had grown too big for my princess beds, and they had been replaced with two larger beds. That night even my newer bed seemed too small. No matter how I lay, I couldn't get comfortable.

'It was funny,' Carina said. 'Kissing him.'

'Weird funny or ha ha funny?' I asked.

I think she shrugged her shoulders, because in the darkness I could just about see her blankets moving.

'It was a bit weird at first. Like... he talked for ages first. I suppose I thought he'd just want to kiss straight away, but he wanted to talk. I was the one who said we should kiss and when we did, well... I don't think he'd ever kissed anyone before. And he didn't seem to expect anything else. Just kissing. I think I might like to meet him again.'

I felt panic rise. 'What if Dad comes back? How will you even get out of the bungalow to see him if Dad's here?'

'Y'know, I've been meaning to say something to you about this, Vivvy. You're coming up with all these ideas, getting your hopes up. But I just don't think he's going to spend a lot of time here this summer. We'll probably be able to sneak away whenever we want.'

'Of course he'll be here,' I hissed. I was trying to keep my voice as low as possible, but I knew I wasn't managing it very well. 'He's here _every_ summer for almost the whole time.'

I saw Carina's blankets rise and fall as she shrugged again, and then she turned over onto her belly, getting ready to go to sleep, and said, 'We'll see.'

≈

For that whole summer my father only spent one full week at home. It was two weeks after Carina's first kiss with Colm when his car pulled into the driveway. The mothers hadn't told us he was due but we knew anyway, by the way they acted. They had the barbecue set up, and they'd been making salads all morning; but most importantly, they were one hundred percent sober and had hidden all of their bottles away.

Sarah hadn't come home from boarding school yet. She had been invited to go to France with some friends of hers, so there were only the seven of us eating, but the mothers made enough food for twenty. Therese cut her finger chopping chives, and my mother was cross all day.

The order in which he approached us was the first noticeable change. He came to me first, which he never usually did. He gave me a big hug and a kiss, wrapping me in his arms for what felt like a long time, and then moved on to the boys. He greeted the mothers next, and left Carina till last. I used to imagine when I was younger that I would be happy if, just once, he hugged me before hugging Carina. There was no sense of victory that day. We were all watching, and I think we all felt sympathy for the cursory hug and the tight smile she eventually received.

He dropped his bag in the house and returned to the garden to light the barbecue. He stood there for ages, not really talking to any of us. He cooked steaks and big thick sausages that the mothers had bought in the butchers', and he sipped at a glass of water, tapping his foot on the ground. I don't know if we were waiting for him to tell us something – I think it felt like that at the time, as if we were all holding our breath and waiting for him to say something important – but he never did.

When we sat and ate, his mood didn't change. He talked to the mothers about the bank account, asking them how much they had spent and on what. There was nothing unusual about any of that, because he always asked those sorts of questions when he visited. But normally he was full of smiles as well, saying how happy he was to be with his girls and boys and how much he'd missed us all. Normally he would be telling us about trips he had planned for the summer, or handing out presents he'd brought.

I had a silly idea that evening, and I suppose I have to put it down to being twelve, because I can't imagine why else I would have thought what I did. I thought that he was annoyed with Carina. I thought that, somehow, he knew what had happened with Colm. He used to tell me, when I was younger, that he knew everything, that he heard about everything we said, everything we did, that no matter what, he could tell what we were thinking and if we were lying. I believed it absolutely when he first told me, and maybe I was still a little bit in fear that summer. I kept shooting dirty looks at Carina, which I know was unfair to her, but it was one of my many betrayals: that on that day I wanted to make it clear to him that, if he knew about Colm, then I was on _his_ side.

For the rest of the week things stayed the same. Instead of a few hours in the morning like every other year, for that week he spent the whole day, every day, in his office.

I spent those days almost always alone. I would sit on the bank of Little Lake, dangling my feet, watching the shine on the water, waiting for the sun to move across the sky. I barely spoke to Carina. She and Therese were in the bungalow most of the time, while the boys played together in our house.

The afternoons felt like they lasted forever. No one came to see me, to talk with me or keep me company. I would stay out in the rain sometimes, just watching as my trousers pasted themselves to my legs, and my hair got so wet that it would drip water down my face. Some days I would hold my mouth open and compare the tastes of the raindrops that fell off my hair to the raindrops that fell off the tip of my nose.

I could stay there by myself the whole day long until, without my noticing, night would have arrived around me. Something was different, but I didn't know what, or why. We didn't have to go to him, because he didn't summon. We didn't have to sit at the table with him at dinner and tell him about our day. We didn't have to do anything. I lived like a ghost in the house, coming in after dark, taking food from the fridge and eating alone in my room. And when I turned out my light at bedtime, Carina's light would already be off.

≈

When he left for Dublin, things didn't return to normal. We all ate together again, and the mothers bought new magazines and were able to take their bottles out of hiding, but despite all of that there was a new feeling over the house.

Carina went back to secretly meeting with Colm, although the mothers paid so little attention that she could have seen him all day, every day, if she liked. She probably could have kissed him right in front of Pauline's face without provoking a reaction. She slept in my room some nights, and she would tell me every detail of her time with him. That whole summer, to Carina's surprise, they never went any further than they had at their first meeting.
Part Two
I could hear the shop grow busier. I thought about going down to help with what was clearly a rush. I wouldn't have hesitated, usually, but these days things were different. Today, especially, was different, because today I was afraid that the first thing I would do would be to shout at him. That was all I could picture happening if I went down those stairs: me, shouting, accusing, unable to stop despite the presence of customers. Because the books were wrong.

How could he do it, so carelessly, so easily, and _not_ expect me to be angry?

It should have been a simple task. It should have relaxed me. Dusting and tidying her bookshelves always calmed me down. But not this time.

The shelves surrounding the living room window were the place for her books. The shelves on the far wall were for anything else. But someone had gone and mixed them up. Snow White had been thrust onto a random shelf, far away from its home. It wasn't even sitting mistakenly amongst other fairy tales. There was no excuse I could think of, no reason for the book having been treated this way. It was just recklessly abandoned, without thought, without care, on top of one of Gary's books, a book about World War Two. So who could it have been, only him? It had hardly been the dog.

I knew I ought to leave it for another time. I ought to go downstairs, not to shout at him or accuse him, but to help him. I could do that. I could leave this to the back of my mind for later, and simply help. I wasn't so far gone that I would _really_ shout at him in front of customers, was I? I could never share these thoughts, this anger, with strangers. I couldn't tell strangers why the order of the books was so important. I couldn't tell Gary, even. But he knew. He must have known.

I tried to take deep breaths, those deep three-part yogic breaths that I should have found calming. It might have worked, had my eyes not been gazing along the line of the shelf dedicated to the Brontë sisters. Instead of a long, steady exhalation, I emitted a grunt. One of those books, too, was misplaced.

I turned to the other bookshelf, and there it was – her copy of Wuthering Heights, right next to his copy of Wuthering Heights.

How was it that he couldn't see, like I could, that the grooves in the spine were different? Her book was so well worn, read over and over by both of us, in love and in hate with Heathcliff when we were just fourteen. Gary's was read probably never, maybe once, maybe under duress for an English exam. He couldn't have mistaken one for the other. He was not that careless. Unless he had done it on purpose. Unless he was trying to provoke me into finally talking or, at the very least, arguing.

We would _have_ to argue, and not just about the books. We would have to argue, and argue, and argue about maternity leave. Actually, that wasn't true. Why was I lying to myself? He would have no problem with extended maternity leave. But the fact that I was thinking of not returning to teaching at all, when it was a job that I loved so much? No – even then the argument that I foresaw was all me. The shouting that I anticipated would come from my mouth, and not from his. He would sit – patiently, probably – and say we should talk, say that I should tell him what the real problem was, what was really bothering me. It would be me who would explode, because exploding was easier than explaining.

Even if I left out the major details and told him the most basic nature of my fears – that I grew cold when I thought about it, about ever leaving her with someone who wasn't me – it still wouldn't be enough. To him, to anyone who didn't know, it would merely be a matter for placation. He would probably start by telling me that I could take all the leave I wanted, but he would (no doubt) go on to tell me that there was nothing new in what I was feeling, that it was a common worry for any mother, the thought of leaving a baby in a crèche. It would be a fear, he would think – most would think – that would pass. It would be a fear that was only natural. But it was so far from natural.

It wasn't worth talking about anyway, because there was no way I could be with her all the time if Gary and I remained separated. I couldn't give up work if our marriage ended. He couldn't stay sleeping in his brother's spare room for ever. He would have to get a place of his own and, to afford that, we would need the shop _and_ my job. I could see two choices: make up with Gary, or return to work as soon as possible.

The bell rang again, and again, and again. I stood with Wuthering Heights in one hand and Snow White in the other, sure that there were more, corrupted by sitting next to the wrong books.

Where was my list? I had kept a list, for so long, but had told myself I needed to stop shortly after I met Gary. It was a list of the few books that had been saved, and of the many that I had gathered. I could prove it. I could count the books, consult the list, and prove that all of the books weren't on the shelf. I would have to find the list, because without it he could say I was imagining things. He could say I had turned the corner and was most definitely around the bend.

The wardrobe. The list was in the wardrobe. I kissed the books softly, before placing them in their correct positions.

I was about to dash to the bedroom, when behind me Major whined and jumped from the couch. He walked to the door, scraping it with his paw and looking at me. He must be able to feel it. He must be able to feel the difference in me, because he was being different _with_ me, trying to get out again when he had been out fifteen minutes earlier, trying to get away from me when he usually wanted to be by my side.

As I opened the door of the flat it came to me more clearly: that funny level of noise that you'll only get in a book shop or a library. Respectful chatter. Do not disturb the books.

It seemed louder than it was. It seemed worse than shouts, worse than laughter.

And again came the bell.

I took Major down the stairs and let him into the garden. After I closed the door behind him I stood in the stairwell, deciding. I could ask Gary about the books later, once I had consulted the list. Now, the shop was busy and I needed to help. I needed the shop to do well. I needed to give up work.

I pushed open the door and, as soon as I saw the shop, considered running back up the stairs. The shop was crammed with children. I think I might really have turned around but two girls from my class, Louise and Saoirse, rushed towards me and I stepped out from behind the door and went to them.

'Miss, Miss!' Louise cried. 'Have you had the baby yet, Miss?'

I looked down at my belly and laughed. 'Not yet. A few weeks to go. I hope my stomach will be a _lot_ smaller once the baby's here.'

Close behind them was Sheila Byrne, Louise's mother. She laughed quietly and said to me, 'Innocence, eh? Wouldn't you love to have it again? The blessing of childhood.'

The girls looked at each other with nonplussed smiles, raising their eyebrows and shrugging their shoulders, and then they held up their books for me to see. Of course. That was why the shop was busy. Gary had been planning for the rush for weeks. It was the release of one of the children's favourites, and all of the book shops had been looking forward to the extra sales. It was a boarding school book, I remembered, the latest in a series of stories following the adventures of a group of friends in a big old school in the countryside.

I nodded politely to Louise's mother, trying to share in her smile, not knowing how to reply to her joke. How I wanted to be her, just for that moment. How I longed to be a mother who did not have to spend every second knowing what I know – that innocence is both the blessing and the curse of childhood.

'I'd better go and help my hubby,' I said to the girls as I tried, once more, to smile at Mrs Byrne. 'Enjoy the book.'

'See you when you've had the baby, Miss,' they called, walking away.

As Gary noticed me he shook his head and scowled down at the cash register. We hadn't spoken for two weeks, not since we slept together.

I stood next to him and opened the second till.

'Where's Rose?'

'Sick,' he said. 'There was a lot of theatrical sniffing on the phone, so I suppose we're going with a cold this time. She always chooses her days well, does Rose. If she wasn't so bloody brilliant when she is here, then I might've done something about it by now.' He turned his attention to a woman who was handing him a purchase. 'That'll be ten ninety nine, please,' he said as he scanned the book.

'This till is open now!' I shouted to the crowd.

Gary smiled a little bit, but then looked annoyed with himself and let his face cloud over again.

If I believed the hands on the clock, then an hour had passed before things calmed down and the queues had cleared, but it didn't feel that long. Somewhere into that hour I forgot my mood and my problems, and it became just another busy day, working alongside Gary.

I missed the shop, I realised. There's something about children being excited about books that has never failed to cheer me. For weeks I had been leaving everything to Gary, using my pregnancy as my excuse. It was true that I had high blood pressure at the beginning, and I had worried about everything – I wouldn't even pick something up from the floor, in case bending hurt the baby. I'd gotten used to it now, though, and the only reason I had been avoiding work was that it also meant avoiding my husband.

With the shop clear he took the opportunity to go into the back, where there was a kitchenette tucked into the corner of the storeroom. He filled the kettle and turned it on to boil, and I looked at him while he stood with his back to me. I was wishing as I looked, wishing that if I looked hard enough and long enough, I could see inside his mind, read his thoughts, his desires. Because anything is possible with people – even the ones you love, the ones you spend the most time with, even they can hold secrets. If only I could hypnotise him, or drug him with truth serum. If only there was a sure way of knowing.

Until recently, I had trusted him absolutely. But then, it's easy to trust when you have nothing to protect. I had allowed myself respite, had convinced myself I was with a good man. With him, with his family, I felt safe. Fear had been put to the back of my mind so that I could lead a normal life.
St Mary's

I had read the Chalet School stories, and Malory Towers. When I was given comics I would always open Bunty first, to read the Four Marys. It surprises me, these days, to see the kids in the book shop go crazy over yet another boarding school story. I thought of them as old-fashioned, but at one time I had consumed them as often as possible, with jaffa cakes and orange squash by my side, eager for the next one to come along.

Did the girls in the shop today really believe, as I did before St Mary's, that boarding school would be exactly as it was portrayed in the stories? Did they imagine, as I once had, that it would be a life filled with midnight feasts and discovering secret passageways, that the school months would be filled with mystery and drama? Dramas aren't quite as entertaining when you're living them. And sneaking down to the kitchen to steal food for midnight feasts would have been punishment rather than fun considering the food they served at our school.

Sarah hadn't told us anything about what it was like, so I had built a picture in my mind – based, of course, on books. When we turned onto the long driveway and I had my first view of the school, my breath caught, and I believed that it would be exactly as I had imagined. It looked like a grand old country house, a much larger version of our own, and I felt sure there would be wood-panelled dormitories and a cosy library with a fire always ablaze.

In reality our dorms were small, carpeted bedrooms with shabby metal-framed bunk beds and too much gloss paint on the doors and skirting boards. All of the corridors had the smell and feel of a hospital, and the carpets and ceiling tiles in the classrooms and common rooms were old and ugly. The library and the dining room were filled with brown plastic chairs and Formica tables, and the radiators were always too hot or too cold. We weren't allowed to alter our uniforms – we couldn't go with just our shirts in the summer, and we couldn't put an extra jumper on in the winter – so we were either freezing or sweating, and had to suffer the temperature changes without complaint.

There were usually four girls to a dorm room, but there were some rooms that slept only two. Carina and I shared a room with Margaret Shaughnessy and Michelle Farrell, and we were to have the same room and the same roommates for our five years there. We were told that it was to give us a sense of being settled. We could put posters up if we used Blu-tack, and if they were in 'good taste.'

Margaret, a tall, broad girl with neat brown hair and light blue eyes had a fondness for pop music, and she had posters of girl groups and boy bands.

Michelle was the opposite to Margaret, when it came to taste in music and in almost everything else. She was skinny and short, with frizzy red hair that fell out of every style she tried to wrestle it into. She loved Pearl Jam and the Prodigy and while we were at school she had to wear tiny plasters to cover her nose- and eyebrow-piercings.

Carina and I had no posters up the whole time we were there.

We weren't allowed to eat in our rooms, though we frequently did, and we couldn't have 'gatherings' in any of the dorm rooms – in other words, there couldn't be more than four girls to a room at any time. For socialising we had common rooms, one for the first, second and third years, and one for the fifth and sixth years. There was a television with the basic stations, a video player, and an old stereo that played records and tapes but not CDs, although most of us were buying them instead of tapes by that time. The common rooms, like all of the other rooms, had brown plastic chairs, though there were also two sunken old sofas that we all fought over whenever we were watching TV.

From the very beginning it felt like we were out of place. I don't know if the other girls really boasted, or if I just took it that way. It was alien to me, I suppose, to talk so openly about your family and your house, about what your parents did and what your siblings were like.

Compared to a lot of the girls we met at St Mary's, we were far from rich. I mean, my father had a good job, but we never had expensive holidays or anything like that. My dad's car might have been nice, but the mothers only had a rickety old Fiesta between them. We had no clothes with designer labels, no expensive watches or jewellery, and even our hairstyles were out of fashion, because up until we went to St Mary's the mothers had trimmed our hair themselves.

At first I didn't know how to talk to the other girls, when I was used to saying so little. Night times were awkward for the first few weeks. When the lights went out and Margaret and Michelle would begin to chat themselves to sleep, Carina and I tended to just stay quiet, and pretend we had already fallen asleep. Once, when they began to speak about Christmas, I even tried a fake snore.

There was another problem, bigger than anything else as far as I was concerned. It caused me to bite my fingernails, to lose sleep and even throw up on a few occasions. The problem was Lucy Hanley. She slept in the room next door to ours, and her father worked with mine. Every other day she spoke to us about functions she'd been to with her dad, like how they got seats next to famous people at the St Patrick's Day parade, or how they went to a charity dinner with some politician or television presenter, and she would always finish off by saying something like, 'Shame you couldn't make it. Still, maybe I'll see you at the next one.'

At first I didn't care that she showed off, or that she never seemed to leave Carina or me alone. I just wished she would shut the hell up talking about my father. I wished that everybody in the entire school would shut up talking about their families and their fabulous lives.

Sarah helped, though. We were surprised to find that she was popular at St Mary's. The distance that had existed between us for years seemed to evaporate as soon as the three of us went through the school gates together. She was lively and warm and always surrounded by a gang of girls. From the first day she acted like the sister I had missed at home, and did her best to try and make us fit in, but even she couldn't help me feel at ease there.

It's probably not fair to say that she invented a whole different background for us. Most of what she said was true. Our father was a partner in a PR firm, and he _had_ written a lot of important speeches and articles, and had been an advisor to some of the most successful politicians. We did live in a big house in Cavan. It was just the way she said these things that made me feel like we were conspiring in a lie. She made it sound somehow glamorous – our house, our lives.

If she talked about our home town, then she called the other children hicks and boggers and sheep shaggers. A lot of the girls said similar things about the people in their home towns. Sarah never mentioned, though, how much we wanted to fit in. She never mentioned how mercilessly the others teased us, calling us freaks and in-breds and Mr McEvoy's Little Women. She never mentioned how we spent breaks alone, huddled together in the drizzly playground pretending that we didn't care about a word they called us.

And maybe the other St Mary's girls were doing just the same – pretending that they had never really wanted to be a part of things, pretending they were the ones who chose to reject, rather than the ones who were rejected.

But our first weeks went by easier than they might otherwise have, because of Sarah, so I suppose I should be thankful for that. I wish I could remember more about my big sister than a few terms together at St Mary's. I wish I had as many memories of Sarah as I do of Carina. At least I had those two years there, though, where she was funny and happy and it finally felt like we were family.

There were so many new things to learn, and without her we would have been lost. There were things that some of the others took for granted – they had horses, they had been on skiing holidays, things like that. There wasn't much we could do to change the fact we had no experience of those things, but one thing that we could get involved in was tennis. Most girls at school played on an almost daily basis. There were hard courts there, and even the first years had tournaments amongst themselves all the time. Carina and I had never played before so we were keen to get some practice.

When we went to meet with Sarah one Saturday morning for a game, she was standing outside the doors with a group of girls we hadn't yet met. She had just dyed her hair, probably that morning or the night before, a shade called 'Fiery Red.' It looked more like fire engine red, but I didn't tell her that. No one did. The girls she was with were telling her how great she looked, how amazing the colour was. She called us over and her friends turned to look at us. I felt like some new accessory Sarah was showing off, the way they all talked about us as if we weren't even there – how pretty we were, how alike we looked, almost like twins.

'So... which one _is_ your sister?' asked one girl. 'I can't tell.'

Sarah put her arm around my shoulder and drew me close. 'Vivienne's my sister,' she said. 'Carina's my cousin.'

I said that we'd better go if we didn't want to lose our court, because I was feeling self-conscious about the way they were looking at us, and the three of us went off alone to the courts. In reality most people were still eating breakfast, so there was no way we would have lost the court we had booked. We had the whole place to ourselves.

Sarah and Carina took their positions on either side while I umpired.

Sarah's first serve hit the net, and things didn't improve much as the game progressed. It was only Carina's third time playing, but she won easily that day in two straight sets, conceding only a few games to Sarah throughout the match. I was convinced that the games Carina did lose were lost on purpose.

We never talked about what Sarah had said to her friends. We never needed to discuss what we were going to say about our family situation. The story was the same story we had been told to tell for years. The funny thing is, though, that all three of us were annoyed that Saturday morning. Maybe it was the way the girls looked at us, and said how alike we were. It was stupid for us to be paranoid; it was stupid for us to feel ashamed, but we felt that way nonetheless.

Another thing happened that morning. It probably wasn't a big deal, although it felt like one to me. During the game Carina started calling me Vivienne, instead of Vivvy. She was probably trying to sound grown up, or to behave more like Sarah, but she continued the trend after the match, from that morning onwards. I convinced myself that it meant nothing much, but every time she called me Vivienne it felt like a loss.

≈

St Mary's was in the south-east, in the countryside. There was a little village about a mile away from the school but all that it had was two pubs, a tiny shop, and a church.

The school was Catholic, which seemed strange to us, because we didn't go to mass regularly. We had made our Holy Communion and our Confirmation with the rest of our class at school, but those are the only other times I remember having to go to church.

At St Mary's we had to pray each morning in assembly, and say grace before we ate our meals, and we had to go to mass once a week at the church in the village. There was a chapel in the school but it was too small to hold all the girls. We had to go to confession as well, although none of us ever took it too seriously. We would say things like how we had sinned by eating too much, or swearing or being rude to a friend or something stupid. We never confessed to anything real, or I didn't, anyway.

Most of our teachers weren't nuns but there were a lot of nuns who lived in the school, and a few who taught. There was one who taught Religion, and one who taught Irish. Those were the oldest of our teachers and, unlike the younger nuns, they wore the whole get-up. The habits of those older nuns looked restrictive and uncomfortable and, because they wore white tight head-pieces beneath their veils, you couldn't see a single strand of hair. For the first few weeks, Carina thought they were hilarious. She had heard from one of the older girls that underneath their veils they were bald, and she wanted to know if it was true. The gang of girls that had become our friends would joke about it all the time, daring one another to try and pull the veils off the nuns. I don't think that any of them actually had any intention of doing it – not then, anyway. As time went on though, the idea became serious. There was only one target, and her name was Sister Assumpta.
Sister Assumpta

Sister Assumpta, I used to think, was probably born looking old and angry. I never once, in my five years at St Mary's, saw the woman smile. I did see her shout, and hiss, and sneer quite a lot, when we had her for Religion class. For most of our first year the worst she really did though, was make exasperated noises or mean comments if we didn't get something right in class.

The first time she did anything to truly unsettle me came towards the end of first year. It was a Sunday afternoon and the school was quiet, with most of the girls either studying for upcoming exams or else out with their families.

Michelle and I were in a corridor that we thought was empty, and we were in a giddy mood. I can't remember how it came about, but Michelle decided that she was going to teach me how to head-bang. She had a tape playing in her Walkman, and we had it up as loud as it would go, so that we could both hear the music.

We were singing along, shaking our heads and laughing, when Sister Assumpta yanked open a nearby door and told us to be quiet. She didn't give us a chance to reply or to apologise, she just closed the door again, but as she did so she said, 'It's a shame caning's been done away with. All ye little sluts are in need of a good thrashing.'

Michelle's mouth hung open as she looked from the closed door to me and back again. I was speechless, too. After a few seconds Michelle turned off her music and reached out a hand as if she was going to knock on the door.

I grabbed her wrist and hissed, 'What are you doing?'

She shrugged and looked helplessly at me. 'She shouldn't have said that. Can you believe she said that?'

I pulled her away and she followed me reluctantly back in the direction of our dorm.

'Well?' she pressed. 'What are we going to do about it?'

I rolled my eyes. 'And who's going to believe us, Michelle? Jesus, did you even hear properly what she said? Maybe we didn't hear her right. Maybe she just... had some sort of... I dunno. She's ancient, isn't she? Probably senile or whatever. What do _you_ think we should do about it?'

Michelle paused as we were about to enter our room. 'Nothing, I s'pose. But if she says anything like that again...'

'I know. I know.'

'Seriously, Viv. I'm not letting anyone talk to me like that. 'specially not some frigid oul' bag like her.'

'All _right._ You go on, then. You go and knock on her door and do whatever you want or say whatever you want. I'll back you up, if you're so offended by the whole thing.'

She began to pull, absentmindedly, at the plaster that covered her eyebrow-piercing. 'Maybe I'll have a think about it,' she said, and went into our dorm.

≈

I don't know why Sister Assumpta waited until second year to act on her dislike of Carina. The fact that she disliked Carina at all was shocking. Nobody disliked Carina. Teachers loved her, students loved her, the lunch ladies, the gardener and the cleaners loved her. There could be no sane reason for Sister Assumpta to dislike Carina, but she did, and that feeling manifested during Sunday mass in January of our second school year.

The nun took her place in a pew directly behind Carina. I was on one side of Carina, and Lucy Hanley was on her other side. We had to sit in rows according to what class we were in, so Sarah was nowhere near us.

We didn't notice anything at first. It was the way Carina suddenly tensed beside me that drew my concern. Carina didn't say anything, though, and I didn't know until the next week what the matter was.

I realised that Sister Assumpta was kneeling, while the rest of the church was sitting down. I looked around to see her draw her rosary beads away, from where they had been on top Carina's backrest. She was moving her lips really quickly, as though she was praying to herself, even though the priest was doing his sermon at the time.

I looked at Carina and saw that she was close to tears. Even then, it took her another week to tell me the full story of what was happening. She grabbed my hand as we walked to the village.

'She's been prodding me with the crucifix on the end of her rosary beads. I think. I don't know. Every time I look around, she stops. She's probably doing it by accident, while she's praying or whatever.'

'We'll switch around,' I said. 'If she sits behind you again, I'll move so she's behind me instead.'

As soon as I took my place in front of Sister Assumpta that day, she shuffled so that she was directly behind Carina. I went to move again, but Sister Catherine saw and gave me a warning glance. I went to open my mouth, to say something. I didn't care that the mass had started, I didn't care if Sister Catherine wanted us to be quiet and sit still. But Carina shook her head.

'Sit down, will you? I'm just imagining it,' she whispered.

That day, Sister Assumpta left Carina alone during the sermon. It was when the choir started singing at the end of the mass that she got onto her knees, and began to prod. Carina didn't say anything. While the rest of us remained seated, she just knelt forward to get away from the prodding.

Carina wouldn't let me say anything to anybody: not to the headmistress, not even to Sarah. Any time I mentioned the subject she would shake her head and wave her hand and say, 'Sure it's no big deal, Vivienne. Leave it.'

It was getting worse though. She had moved on from merely prodding, and had started to whisper things as well. Sometimes her whispers were in Latin. Sometimes they were so low that you couldn't hear much at all. But one Sunday, close to the Easter Holidays, she said something that I heard clearly. Maybe she added some extra vexation because she knew she wouldn't have a chance to annoy Carina for the following two weeks. Whatever her reasons may have been, on that day there was no mistaking the words she slipped in amongst her rosary prayers.

'Our Carina,' she hissed, 'who ought be in hell, doomed be thy name.' And then she prodded just once with her crucifix, ever so slightly, before going back to saying her prayer as normal. She soon came to another part she wanted to change, and said, 'And forgive you all your trespasses.'

≈

Sarah stayed on at school for Easter, but even so I didn't get much time alone with Carina over the holidays. On the days when my father wasn't there, she sneaked about with Colm. She was annoyed over those holidays, and took some of it out on me, but I still acted as her lookout whenever she asked. None of her meetings with Colm appeared to go all that well. She seemed moodier than ever when she was around him, and yet she continued to spend as much time with him as possible.

The last time they met up over those holidays, Carina asked me to go along. They were meeting, as they often had since their first kiss, at the lake close to our primary school. I said I would walk to the lake with her, but would go as soon as he arrived because I thought they would want to be alone to say goodbye.

When we saw him walk towards us, I turned to leave.

Colm rushed closer, saying, in an out-of-breath voice, 'Don't run off again, Viv. You don't have to, y'know.'

Carina scowled. 'Yeah, _Viv._ It's not like we'll be doing anything exciting, anyway, is it?'

I looked from one to the other, and said, 'Nah, I can't stay. I need some stuff for school, so I've got to go to the shops.'

I left them there and walked away. I did my shopping and made my way to the only café in the town, where I sat by the window so I could keep an eye on the road. The mothers had taken Graham and Michael out somewhere and I didn't expect them to be back for at least a few hours, but I was being extra careful. The mothers must have known about Colm and Carina by then, but my father hadn't been clear about his plans, and the mothers were always stricter if there was a risk of his return. Anyway, I liked being in the café. When I was there by myself I could open up a book and pretend to be reading, while I listened to the conversations going on in the room.

I was only there about ten minutes when they joined me, Carina slumping into the seat opposite and saying, 'Well, apparently I'm in a mood, so we've come to you for entertainment.'

Colm's face reddened as he took a seat next to mine. 'Do you want us to go?'

I shrugged and put my book away.

Maybe it was because we sat so awkwardly, the three of us barely speaking. Maybe it was because I spent most of the time looking from one to the other for signs of what was wrong. Whatever the reason, when I sit alone now and think of how he looked on that day, the memory is as clear as a photograph.

His hair was beginning to change to a darker shade of auburn, and the freckles that had once covered his whole face had lessened and concentrated, so that when you looked at him your gaze was drawn to the dots across his nose and cheeks. But it was his eyes that I particularly noticed, that day. I remember comparing them to the eyes of a fox I had seen as a child.

When we got back to our gate they didn't want to be alone. Colm said goodbye to both of us, quite formally, and Carina took my arm and marched me into the house. I supposed that it was because of Sister Assumpta. I thought that Carina's mood over the nun was affecting the way she was around Colm. She wouldn't talk about it, and the next day we were back at St Mary's.

≈

Nothing changed in the last term of that year. Each mass was the same as the one before, and still Carina refused to report things. She wouldn't even discuss the things that Sister Assumpta was doing and saying. One day all she said to me was, 'Why are you going on about that again? Didn't you hear how amazing the choir sounded? I wish I could sing.'

I thought about speaking to Michelle. This was worse than what had been said to us the year before, but the two things together meant that there was a real chance of our complaint being heeded. But weeks went on, and I still did as Carina asked and said nothing.

Lucy Hanley always sat next to us in church – she sat next to us whenever and wherever she could – so of course it was inevitable that she, too, had noticed what was happening. When she came to me I was out on the lawn, even though it was drizzling, just so that I could be alone to think. At first I was annoyed to see Lucy, but when she said she had come to talk about Carina and Sister Assumpta, I felt relieved.

'Has anyone else heard it?' she asked. 'I mean, how could they, I suppose? It's always the three of us, isn't it, huddled together through the dreary mass. And it's not like the nutty old nun is shouting it from the rooftops, these things she says. I've got pretty good hearing, though. Like a dog, Mammy says. Ears prick up at the slightest sound. But still. Does anyone else, like, know?'

I shook my head. 'Michelle and me had a run-in with her last year and she said some pretty weird stuff. But we sort of let it go. This is worse, though.'

'It's like a vendetta, isn't it?' said Lucy in a stage-like whisper, her eyes shining. 'Like she has a vendetta against Carina. Poor Carina. My God, I can't believe that you, me and Carina are the only ones who know that this is happening. So, like, what should we do, then?'

'Should we... I was thinking about talking to Michelle first. So we could all go together to the head or something, even if Carrie's afraid to. At least then there'd be three of us backing each other up.'

Lucy wrinkled her nose. 'So Carina, like, doesn't _want_ any fuss about this?'

I sighed. 'She doesn't, no. She says it's no big deal.'

Lucy took my arm in hers, tightly, and said, 'Well, then. Sure, we'll keep it to ourselves for now, just us three, till poor Carrie's made up her mind.'

≈

We should have just gone to the headmistress and complained on Carina's behalf, despite what she said. I can't think why I let it go on for so long. Lucy and I had many conversations about it, but we never came to a decision. We went back and forth, wondering whether to go behind Carina's back or not.

It was so subtle, the way that Sister Assumpta did these things, and maybe we thought Sister Assumpta would tell the headmistress that we were mistaken, that we had misheard, and that would be that. During our Religion classes she treated Carina just the same as everybody else. Granted, that wasn't very nicely, but there was nothing you could call bullying in the classroom.

Even so, when we did have Religion class, Carina was miserable just because she had to be in the same room as Sister Assumpta for forty-five minutes. Carina became withdrawn at other times as well. She stopped coming to the common room and spent a lot of time studying and reading alone.

Sarah was livid when I finally decided to tell her what had been going on. I don't know what made me tell her. I suppose it was that everyone but Carina was in the common room, having a laugh, and I missed her.

I left our common room and went across the school to the one that the fifth and sixth years shared. They were watching the X-Files when I walked in, and I almost turned around and left. Sarah loved that programme – she was crazy about David Duchovny – but as soon as I whispered that I needed to talk to her, she left the room and followed me straight outside.

We went to a bench on the side of the lawn that was bordered by forest. It was darkest there, and we thought there wasn't much chance of us being disturbed.

I blurted it all really quickly, and I worried that she wouldn't understand what I was talking about, or why I was so upset about what was happening. I even pictured her rolling her eyes and laughing and asking me what the big deal was.

She stayed quiet and followed my every word carefully, her face going from concerned to angry as I went on, and when she did finally speak, at first she started shouting at me, telling me I should have come to her sooner, telling me it was about time I started thinking about other people.

I didn't argue back, because I thought she was right. So I let her shout, and shout, until eventually she said, quietly, 'She should've told me. I wouldn't have expected you to, really. But Carrie should've told me.'

We sat outside for two hours that evening, talking right up until it was time to go to bed. It's the longest conversation I ever had with Sarah. We didn't notice the sky growing darker. If anyone passed us over the duration of our talk, we didn't notice them, either. We sat with our heads bowed together, deciding our course of action.

It was Sarah's last year, so she was determined to do something about Sister Assumpta before she left. I don't know why it came to me all of a sudden, but I told her about Carina's first year obsession with de-veiling a nun, and how even though we dared one another all the time, no one had the nerve to go through with the prank.

'It's perfect,' Sarah said. 'That's what we'll do, so.'

Every year, just before the exams began, St Mary's held an Open Day. Families of students could come and watch the awful shows we were forced to put on, and people who were thinking of sending their daughters there could take a look around and ask questions of the teachers and pupils. And each year, without fail, Sister Assumpta would give a speech about the school's focus on Catholicism. Sarah, as self-appointed leader, decided that the Open Day would be the perfect opportunity to carry out our revenge. She soon had girls from her year, as well as mine, involved.

Lucy didn't seem happy, at first. I had gone behind her back, according to her. We should have both been in on the decision to go to Sarah. But as the thing grew, Lucy relished the talking and planning. She would say, to anyone who listened, 'It was me who heard her saying all that stuff to Carrie, y'know. God knows, if I hadn't... poor Carrie might have kept it all to herself and we'd be none the wiser.'

I never corrected her if I overheard her talking in that way. It was finally out in the open and we were making plans to do something about it, and that was all that mattered. We had all come up with ideas for how to go about things, but most of the suggestions were stupid, involving items we didn't even have or know how to get, like hooks and trip wire.

What we actually did in the end was one of Sarah's ideas. Once she came up with it, it seemed the obvious solution for how to de-veil a nun without blame, and we couldn't believe that we hadn't thought of it sooner.

There were day girls at St Mary's as well as boarders, and some of them came from the local village. One of them, Kathleen Reagan, had a gang of younger brothers and sisters. Sarah's idea was to pay them to do our dirty work.

It was a really nice day. We had chairs set up in the grounds under a marquee, and there was a little platform at the front where awards were handed out, and the best poems or essays of the year were read aloud. The marquee was open at one end, so that it was really bright inside, but it also meant that a lot of flies, and even some bees, came into the tent while we were listening to Sister Assumpta's speech.

She probably thought, at first, that it was an insect hitting her on the cheek, instead of a pebble thrown at her by ten-year-old Gillian Reagan. She waved her hand irritably in the air, and kept on with her speech. The pebble throwing was just an extra. It had nothing to do with the aim of the plan, and maybe it was cruel of us, but we didn't care. There was another thrown, and another and another.

It was surprising that it took at least four assaults before Sister Assumpta realised she was being targeted. She stopped looking in the air for insects, and focused her glare on the audience, looking at the places where pupils were sitting. The first person she looked at, I noticed, was Carina.

Carina looked back, confused, having no idea why she was being blamed, or even what she was being blamed for.

I started to look around, worried that things weren't going to go to plan.

Sister Assumpta left the platform and marched through the crowd, in the definite direction of Carina. That was when the youngest Reagan (the one they all, for some reason, called Rasher) ran through the crowd, snatched the veil – remembering, as he had been instructed, to pull at the white cap that covered her scalp – then ran back outside and threw it in the pond.

I don't know what we expected to feel. Years later, I was watching an episode of Doctor Who, and I saw the real body of a Dalek, pathetic looking inside its machine. There was a moment of sadness when I looked at the gnarled little man. For a second I forgot how horrifically evil the Daleks were, and I just stared, feeling sorry for him. It was like that with Sister Assumpta. It wasn't that she had no hair. It was just that there was so little of it. I still have no idea if it's true that some nuns are bald beneath their veils, but Sister Assumpta's hair was like fuzz on a baby's head. And through the few thin strands we could see huge liver spots all over her dry, dandruff-covered scalp.

She couldn't actually punish Kathleen's little brother, and she couldn't punish Kathleen either, but she did her best to make the remainder of the term miserable. She made up reasons why the older girls couldn't go into the village, and took away television privileges at the slightest excuse. She found fault with everything that everybody did. But no one minded. In fact, the nastier she became, the more vindicated we felt. The moment of shock had passed, and not a single one of us felt sorry for how embarrassed she had been at the removal of her veil.

She didn't sit behind us during the last mass of term. We looked around the church, but couldn't see her anywhere.

Carina hadn't known what we were planning. When she realised that we were all responsible for what Rasher did she acted really enthusiastic and thanked us all, but I could tell she wasn't as happy as she pretended. While the rest of us were celebrating out on the lawn, retelling the best points over and over, Carina left the crowd.

I followed her and found her in our room. She was rearranging the bags she had already packed for our summer holidays.

'You did that this morning,' I said.

She shrugged. 'Yeah, but I didn't do a great job, so...'

I sat on her bed. 'Y'know, it's not like we were sneaking around behind your back, by not telling you what we were planning. We just thought... well, the others thought it might be a nice surprise. Give you a bit of a laugh.'

'And what did you think? Did you want to surprise me, too?'

'No,' I admitted. 'But there's something she does to you. She... I can't explain it. I just thought you'd try and talk us out of it. Honestly, Carrie, I thought you'd say it wasn't worth all the fuss.'

She looked down at the jumper she was refolding.

'Well. It wasn't, really,' she said.

Her head was so low that I wanted to cry, but instead I grabbed her hand and said, 'It was. Carrie, it was.'

She sniffed a bit, and threw her clothes into the suitcase. 'Sure, let's go back outside, will we. Might as well enjoy our last afternoon here.'
Summer Studies

We got home before Sarah that summer because she had to stay on to sit the Leaving Certificate. When she did arrive back at the house, things went back to how they always were at home. Sarah, Carina, and sometimes even the mothers, shared conversations that I wasn't a part of, but I don't think I was too upset about it that summer. I had other things on my mind.

I had begun something over the school year, and I was determined that by the end of the holidays this experiment of mine would have reached its conclusion.

What I would do, is I would study families. When parents came to visit their daughters, I would listen in to their conversations and try to gauge if they were anything like us. Mostly it would involve sitting close to them in the local pub on family days, when a lot of parents took their girls for lunch, or else I would pretend to study on the lawn close to where they were having a picnic. I stored all of the conversations mentally and picked them apart for clues as soon as I was alone.

I suppose it was natural, the way things developed in my mind, but at the time I felt slow, and stupid, and confused. I knew I couldn't just come out and ask for answers, so I decided to spend the summer continuing to study families in order to make sense of things.

It's difficult for me to remember this phase without embarrassment and shame, now that I'm older. Sometimes I think: why did I _need_ to study them, when I should have already known the answers? Why did I feel this need for proof absolute? Why did I keep questioning myself, keep mistrusting myself?

But I couldn't stop it, and one, two, three conversations would not be enough, would never be enough. I could have listened to a million families and their interactions, and still remained unsure.

Obviously I needed to do things differently whilst at home for the holidays. I did my best to study the people I saw in town if we were shopping, or having food in the pub or the café, but there weren't very many opportunities like that over the months. Books and films were my main source material for the duration. Lines of dialogue were read and reread. Videos were paused, rewound, and played over.

I had plenty of excuses ready if anyone should ask what I was doing, but as it happened, no one paid any attention.

Our father did the same as he had for the last few years, and came for only short periods of time. But I didn't complain about it, any more. I was no longer cruel enough to tell Carina I wished he could stay for longer. If anything, I wanted to apologise to her for all the times I had been so insensitive. But that's the way it is, with growing, with beginning to see people for who they really are, with beginning to recognise that your life isn't as amazing as you wish it was. Realisation starts early enough, but the full picture takes a while to form. Even when it's developing, the ideas can be hazy and unformed. Even when you know things aren't quite right, you go along with the lies. That year, as I studied the families around me, and on television and in books, I still wasn't completely willing to accept the picture of my family that was forming itself, setting itself, in my mind.

Only certain memories are vivid, you see. There are many conversations and events that formed who I was, and how I thought, but that I cannot fully remember. I can't, for example, remember if there was any one conversation which instilled in me the earlier idea that we were _not_ different, that everybody was the same as us, underneath. I can't remember when it was that I was told that secrets were natural, and that every family kept them. I can't remember how many times I was told that people kept their business to themselves, that it remained in the family, and went no further. These are ideas I half-had, and still half-have in some ways, but as far as their origins, it's hard to pin down the memories.

I wondered then and I wonder now: _is_ everyone the same? I don't want to believe it, but I don't think I'll ever stop worrying that it might be true.

By the end of that summer I had decided to go with certainties. I had decided, however short-lived my study may have been, to trust the obvious conclusion. And the conclusion that I had come to was that our life was a lie. Everyone was not the same. Everyone did not tell the lies we did. Our lies were _not_ white lies. Our lies were not for the best.

I sat on my bed, close to the end of the holidays, trying to find a way around my conclusion, trying to find a way that meant I would not have to take action. And I don't know why I felt that way. I don't know why I was afraid to trust myself, and afraid to do anything.

Sarah's exam results came that summer, and I wasn't surprised to learn that she didn't do well in her Leaving Certificate. I heard the mothers telling her that our father wasn't happy about it.

'He's not happy at all, Sarah,' said Therese.

Pauline shook her head and added, 'Not one little bit.'

Sarah shrugged, smiled, and said, 'Oh well.'

Over that summer holiday my relationship with Sarah had gone back to being non-existent, so although I tried to talk to her about her plans she just shrugged at me as she had done to the mothers.

I don't know where she got the money for her flight, but she went to Australia that year, to work in a bar, a few days before Carina and I were due back at school.

At first I was annoyed. It seemed like the mothers and Carina knew all about Sarah's going, but until they packed her suitcases in the Fiesta and drove her to the airport, I knew nothing of the journey.

I stayed at home minding the boys that day, although they didn't really need minding any more. I just did what I was told, and stayed in the house playing Nintendo games with Graham and Michael while the others went to Dublin Airport to see Sarah off.

For the next few days I was annoyed with everybody, but once term started in September, and I was in the only place where Sarah had felt like my sister, I began to miss her. For most of our third year I moped around, wishing she was still there. School went on the way school does, with nothing really happening that year. Carina did really well in her Junior Certificate, and I did all right.

All of my secret studying of families made no difference. I didn't do anything. I didn't talk to Carina, or to anybody else, about what I was thinking. I just went on with school, on with life, with a sort of empty feeling that wouldn't go away.

During holiday times we saw less and less of my father. The summer following our third year, he spent only two weekends at the house. By then I was glad. By then I thought that if he didn't come back, at least I wouldn't have to think too much about things. Maybe he would never come back, and it would be almost as if none of it had ever happened.
Fifth Year

I can't say I liked the school any more as the years went on, but at least in fifth year we had some extra privileges. We were allowed to wear our own clothes at weekends and during the evenings – well, except during mass. In church it was still full uniform, no jewellery or make-up, and neat hair. On Wednesday and Sunday afternoons, and all day Saturday, we were allowed to go wherever we wanted, but most of us just went to the village or into the nearest town to shop.

We had family weekends the whole time we were in St Mary's, for two weekends a month. Either we could go home for the entire weekend, or else two members of our family could come and visit us. If the family came to visit, it was for one day only. They could take their children out for lunch or something like that, or else they could come and look around the school, until they got kicked out at half past five. These were the days on which, in third year, my scrutiny of family relationships had been carried out.

Like Sarah, we rarely went home at the weekends during term. Every now and then though, the mothers came to visit. We would always wonder what brought about their trips, because there was no obvious pattern to them. Every so often, without bothering to tell us they were coming, the mothers and their battered little car would arrive in the car park. Each time, their car would be slightly more battered than the last. There would be a new bumper or a wing mirror which they had picked up themselves at Nally's and done a bad job of replacing. But the car delivered them to us, however sporadically, and however noisily, and off we would go to Mulligans for lunch.

The place was actually called _Thomas Mulligan, Publican_ ; that was the name above the door anyway, but in the village and amongst the St Mary's girls, it was known as Mulligans. There was a respectable crowd, nice roast dinners, and some middle-aged guys providing bad music a couple of evenings a week – they came with an old keyboard, an out of tune guitar, and only knew about a dozen songs which they would play on a loop.

The youngest Mulligan was called Rob. He was eighteen when we were in fifth year. He worked most evenings and weekends in the pub, and he was an apprentice electrician as well. I used to have to go to great effort to stop myself from laughing at the way Rob behaved around Carina. There was one day, in March, when he was more obvious than ever.

First of all he pretended to forget the tonic for Therese's gin, so he could make a second trip. Then he forgot the mint sauce for our lamb. He came back at least half a dozen times while we ate, to ask us if we needed anything else or to check that the food was all right. He told us the dessert options three times that day.

Most girls in our school liked Rob. I think if you looked at him from a distance he probably seemed really good-looking, but I couldn't see why they all turned into red-faced giggling idiots when he was around.

We had a term we used to use back then (I think we got it from the movie _Clueless_ ) for guys that looked good from a distance but weren't so great close-up, and Rob, to me, fitted the term perfectly: Rob was a Monet. He had mousy hair, but it was always styled and gelled. He was fussy about his clothes, and he always made sure his T-shirts were tight so that you could see his muscles – muscles which were, as it happened, quite nice for a guy his age.

Carina never seemed to notice him at all, which was funny considering how everyone else reacted to Rob. I used to wonder how she managed _not_ to notice him, when he did everything he possibly could to attract her attention. And the dumb things he did when she was around – spilling drinks, messing orders up when he was usually so efficient – should have at least made her aware. He seemed so vain, normally. If I was in there with some of the other girls he would act like he was God's gift, but if I was there with Carina, it was Rob who turned into the red-faced idiot.

When we were leaving that afternoon, and we were all squeezing into the car, I realised I'd left a magazine behind. I had only bought it before lunch and hadn't even glanced through it yet, so I went back into Mulligans.

It was safe to say that Rob didn't notice my re-arrival. He was standing behind the bar, alone, with his back to me. I could see my magazine on the floor beneath the chair I'd been sitting in, so I knelt down and, as I did, I noticed what it was that was distracting Rob's attention. He was looking into the mirror that ran behind the bar, sucking his stomach in, flexing his arms, standing firstly head-on to the mirror, and then turning to stand sideways, so he could admire himself from different angles.

Stifling a laugh, I grabbed my magazine and went to creep away, but I banged into a chair and knocked it against the tiled floor. He was startled by the noise, looking all around the place, his face puce.

'Forgot my magazine,' I said, smirking.

'You're Carina's mate.'

I nodded. 'That's me. Carina's mate. See ya.'

'Wait!' he called. 'Everyone goes to And Sons on Saturdays. I'm working. Tell Carina I'd serve ye. I'd make sure yis wouldn't get carded. Ye should come along next weekend. Few o' ye, from the school.'

I shrugged. I was still smirking, because I couldn't get the image of his mirror antics out of my mind. 'Maybe,' I said, giving in to my laughter before I'd quite reached the door.

≈

I didn't want to tell Carina about it until the mothers had gone. Once Pauline and Therese had left the school though, Michelle and Margaret wanted us to play tennis. It wasn't until later that we got to be alone, while the others watched TV. I hadn't forgotten about it by then. I'm not really sure why I didn't just come out and tell her. I didn't have the excuse, any more, of the mothers or our roommates being around, but for some reason I held back and, when I finally did tell her, I did it in a really stupid way.

We were lying on our beds, and Carina was busy with my magazine, doing the quiz. She was laughing at it and reading the questions out loud in a really sarcastic voice.

' "If your boyfriend suddenly cancels a date do you:

' "A. Assume he is seeing someone behind your back and follow him?

' "B. Assume he is up to no good, but stay home and fume about it and never mention your suspicions?

' "C. Forget all about him and go out with your friends?"

'Well? Which would you do, Vivienne?'

She was always that way with the magazines we bought. She thought they were hilarious, and would make fun of the quizzes every week. She loved to read out the horoscopes as well, with the same sarcastic voice.

'C,' I said. 'Go out with my friends.'

She laughed. 'Would you? I would have sworn you'd've gone for B.'

I suppose I must have looked annoyed, because she added, 'I didn't mean it to be nasty. Sure, how would I know what you'd do in that situation?'

'You're right. You wouldn't know. I've got a question for you. If the sexy barman from Mulligans decided that Carina Reynolds was the only woman for him, would she:

'A. Go along to And Sons on Saturday night and get off with him?

'B. Go along but only so she could tell him she couldn't have anything to do with him because she already has a boyfriend back home?

'C. Just not go at all?'

Carina looked up from the magazine.

'What are you on about, Vivienne?'

'Rob. Y'know – he of the tight T-shirts who everyone but you seems to be obsessed with. He wants us all to go to And Sons. Well, he really only wants _you,_ but he said he'd make sure none of us got asked for ID if we went along.'

She went quiet for a moment, and then she said, 'C. Just not go at all. But you lot could go though. I could keep an eye-out here to make sure you didn't get caught.'

'So not B, then?' I asked.

She sighed. 'Oh, I don't know. What does it matter? I don't want to go, all right?'

She stood up, saying she was going for a shower, and I went to watch TV with the others. We didn't go to And Sons that Saturday. But a little while after our Sunday lunch in Mulligans we heard something that changed Carina's mind.

≈

'Is it true?' asked Lucy.

It was Friday afternoon, and we were warming up before camogie.

'Is what true?' I asked.

I already sounded bored, probably. Over the years Carina and I had grown tired of Lucy. From the very beginning she had told us about parties she had been to with her father, or about politicians and celebrities she'd met, but it seemed to have gotten worse with time – or maybe it was just that my patience was running out. She just went on and on as if she knew everyone in Ireland. If we were watching TV, she'd say, 'Oh I met that singer once, at one of my dad's barbecues.' She couldn't possibly have met all of the people she said she had, but even if someone caught her out, she would never admit that she had been telling a lie.

'So,' she said, smiling in her irritating way. 'Ye aren't saying. Oh well, I'd probably want everyone to shut up about it as well if I were you.'

'Lucy, what are you going on about?'

Carina came over to see what was going on, and already she looked as if she was just as annoyed as I was with Lucy. 'Yeah, Luce, what's your latest celebrity gossip? Has Sister Assumpta got some hair extensions?'

Everyone started laughing at the joke, even Lucy, although her smile was beginning to turn nasty.

'It's good you two are staying upbeat,' she said. 'I don't know if I could in your shoes. But then, he's only your... what is he, anyway? Your uncle, Carina? So maybe it doesn't affect you as much as it does poor Vivienne?'

'I swear to God, Lucy!' I said, standing really close to her. She started to look frightened, because I was a lot taller than her, but the more she tried to back away the angrier I became. I grabbed at the neck of her T-shirt with one hand. In the other hand I grasped tightly onto the ball, and I felt that if I held onto it any tighter, there was a possibility it might break. 'If you don't just spit out whatever the hell you're dying to say then I'll just – I'll ram this ball so hard up your arse, Lucy Hanley!'

'Your dad, Vivienne,' she said, with her voice shaking. 'Him and that woman. We heard he's moving to Kildare with her and her daughter.'

I shook my head. 'No. No he's not.'

'But... Viv... Our dads work together. If my dad says it's true, then it's true.'

I let go of her T-shirt, threw the ball violently to the ground so that it rebounded and hit her on her chest, and then I stormed away.

Carina came rushing after me, and neither of us said a word. I headed straight for the pay-phones and Carina gave me a handful of change. It took ages for anyone to answer. I realised that this was actually the first time I had phoned home in all of the years I had been at St Mary's. Sometimes the mothers called us at the school, but we never rang them. I was picturing it in my mind while I listened to the dial tone: walk to the kitchen windowsill, get the keys, find the right key, unlock the office door...

My mother's voice sounded so small – almost frightened – as she said, 'Hello?'

If I was a salesperson calling, or someone carrying out a survey, I probably would have asked her if she could put her mother on the phone.

'It's me. Is it true?'

She didn't say anything, so I went on. 'Is he moving in with some woman in Kildare?'

For a moment there was just more silence, then she said, 'Well yes, but... It's for the best, isn't it? Been going on for years.'

'Has it?' I shouted. 'Well how the bloody hell would I know? We're almost seventeen and you two tell us nothing. Nothing! What does this mean for us?'

She sighed. It was an irritable little sigh. 'What do you mean? It doesn't mean anything for you, Vivienne. Everything's the same as before.'

I was so annoyed with her tone. It was the same as always, like I was bothering her simply by existing, and I should have been used to having her speak to me that way, it shouldn't have mattered to me, but that day it made me angry.

'Well what about the child?' I cried. 'Lucy Hanley says this woman has a little girl.'

I could hear the sound of footsteps and the clinking of glass. Therese was in the room with her. There was a pause while I think my mother took a drink, and then she said, 'Apparently so. Listen, it's not going to affect you in any way. Nothing ever does, does it? Shouldn't you be in a class or something?'

I slammed the phone down. It took me a while to calm down enough to relate the conversation to Carina. We slumped down onto the chairs that were next to the phones and sat there for five minutes, saying nothing.

After a while the others trailed in, dirty from their game, laughing and talking. A couple of girls looked like they were going to come over to us, but we must have both looked angry and uninviting, because they changed direction and left us alone.

'Y'know what we need to do,' said Carina when the corridor had cleared. 'We need to forget all about it.'

I don't know when I started crying, because I only noticed it when I tried to speak. 'Oh yeah? And how are we supposed to do that?'

'And Sons. We'll go to And Sons on Saturday,' she declared.

I sighed. Once Carina decided something, then that was the way it was going to be. I didn't see how it would make any difference but I knew I would go along.

For the next week, people looked at us in a sympathetic way, and I remember growing angrier and angrier. We didn't get in trouble for leaving the game early, which made things worse. It meant that even the teachers knew. It meant that the whole school was talking about us.
And Sons

And Sons was directly across the road from Thomas Mulligan, Publican. When I first went to St Mary's, I thought that this was a joke. I assumed that the two pubs were happily run by the same family. I later found out that, although they _were_ run by the same family, they were two very separate businesses.

The story was that Thomas Mulligan was so mean that he expected all of his sons to work for nothing, and that this (understandably) didn't go down well with the sons. Sometime in the 1980s, the eldest son left home to work abroad as a builder and returned with a fortune to build And Sons. It became a refuge for eight of his younger brothers over the years. Rob, who was the youngest so far, was working for his father as little as he could get away with. Rumour had it that Mrs Mulligan, though well into her fifties, had another child on the way. Perhaps Mr Mulligan was hoping this one would be Rob's replacement.

It wasn't difficult to organise our exit. Nights out were against the rules, but there were ways around that. Each teacher was supposed to take a stint as Dorm Mother, making sure that all fifth and sixth years were safely tucked up in bed by eleven at the latest, but the job invariably fell to the youngest teacher. Her name was Miss Mahony, she taught English, and as long as someone slipped her some money she couldn't care less how late, or how drunk, we came back.

Five of us went. We wanted to keep it to the four of us who shared a room – Margaret, Michelle, Carina and me – to avoid too many people knowing about it, but Lucy wanted to come as well, and even though I still felt like punching her, I agreed.

My relationship with Lucy had been strained for a long time, but now I felt almost as if I was being blackmailed into letting her into our group. She didn't _say_ anything more since the day she told us about the woman my father had left us for. It's hard to explain how it was that she made me feel blackmailed. Carina was popular and so was I, probably by proximity. Lucy had always tried to be part of our group from the beginning, and for the first couple of years we had palled about with her, but as she grew more annoying we began to exclude her, and would have preferred to go on excluding her for the rest of our time at St Mary's. But after the news she'd told us, it was as if she was keeping quiet, not saying any more, not spreading any more rumours, as long as we agreed to let her do things with us again.

She might say something not-too-subtle like, 'Oh, are you lot going to play tennis? I _was_ going to ring my dad and see what news he has, but maybe I could tag along with you lot instead.' Maybe it wouldn't have sounded threatening to anyone else listening, but when she said these things she would smile in a way that made me sure – she knew more than she was saying, and if we didn't let her join in, she would be only too happy to start talking. She never said, 'Let me hang around with you or else...' but it was something that Carina, Lucy and I all understood.

Despite Miss Mahony having been paid off, we still took the precaution of going out via the 'window and the wall' instead of the front doors and gates. Apparently it was a famous route. Up until she left for Australia, Sarah had boasted of sneaking out that way many times; she said that it was her who had broken the lock of the laundry room window. Part two of the route, preferable to going through the forest, was to go over the back wall. Of course Sarah had taken the credit for that part of the route as well. She told us she had knocked most of the bricks down and placed a pile of old pallets up against the wall on the other side, so that the climb was easier.

All of us wore too much make-up that night. My boobs were bigger that year, so I wore a low-cut top as well. I don't know if I actually thought that showing off as much cleavage as possible would make me appear a year older than I actually was, but the others followed suit. I think we expected that everyone would automatically know we weren't supposed to be there, that they would gawk at us as soon as we walked into And Sons. It didn't happen that way, though. A few lads glanced our way when we walked in, but no one else paid attention.

Rob was working behind the bar. His face lit up when Carina approached him with our drink order.

'I'll bring them over,' he said.

A few people at the bar did look at us, then, because in And Sons you carried your own bloody drink to the table. Rob's older brothers didn't give out to him. They just grinned and laughed every time he came over to our table. When we were there for about an hour I went to the ladies' room, and as I passed the bar on my way back I heard one of his brothers saying, 'Looks like our Rob has a thing for the rich girls. Sure, isn't he the cutest of the lot of us.'

When Rob got his break he came over to our table with a drink for Carina. She finished it in seconds, even though she said it tasted really strong, and he went to buy her another. Four of his friends came over then and started talking to the rest of us.

'Jesus, girl, you can drink,' Rob said, when she finished the next glass. 'So... you go to that school then?'

Carina shrugged, then hiccupped, before managing to say, 'Yup.'

Rob smiled as if Carina's hiccupping was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. 'Do you em... do you like it up there then?'

She hiccupped again, and then said, 'S'all right, I s'pose. School's school.'

'Ah sure, only the rich'd say that,' commented one of Rob's friends.

Carina scowled, and he shrank back into his seat before she even spoke.

'I'm _not_ rich. Vivienne's dad pays my fees.'

She nodded towards me, and I felt myself growing uncomfortable. Everyone turned to look in my direction.

'We're cousins,' I said. 'So isn't it only natural for him to want to look after Carina.'

I don't know, looking back, where it all came from, what made Carina look at me the way she did that night. We weren't used to drinking, so that was probably the main reason, but the way she looked at me when I called us cousins was completely unexpected. She looked, for a second, as if she was annoyed with me, and only me, as if everything was my fault, as if I was the only one forcing her to keep up with the lie.

'Yeah,' she went on. 'After all, my dad? Where is he? Some big loser. Some scumbag. Some dickhead. Some arsehole. Daddy McEvoy, on the other hand... Daddy McEvoy is Mr Magnanimous.'

She was laughing and smiling while she said all of this, and everyone else started laughing along, but it left me feeling cold. When she stood up a second later and left the table I didn't even ask where she was going. When Rob followed her and we didn't see either of them for ages, it was Margaret who said, 'Maybe someone should go check on Carina.'

'So you go,' I said.

Margaret shook her head, rounding her eyes at me. She had been chatting to one of Rob's friends, and I could tell she liked him. After a few minutes, though, I still hadn't left the table, and Margaret got up and went to search for Carina. She came back a few minutes later, giggling.

'She's all right. She's in that little corridor that leads from the toilets to the beer garden. With Rob.'

≈

On the walk back to St Mary's Carina talked about Rob: what a great kisser he was, how good-looking he was...

Even when we got to our dorm, even when we had all changed into our nightclothes and were lying in bed, she was still talking. The other girls were lapping it up, acting like everything she said was really exciting. They would add in little bits about the guys that they liked, but mostly Carina did the talking.

I put my headphones in my ears and my pillow over my head, just so I could drown her out. I wished I could swap places with Lucy and go and sleep in the room next door.

≈

We arranged to meet Rob and his friends the next week.

Linking the school grounds and the village was a huge area that was mostly forest; there were hiking trails running throughout and picnic benches dotted around the edges. We had nature walks there when we were in first year, and it had made me feel claustrophobic. Every direction looked the same to me, and I had been afraid to lose sight of the rest of the class, in case I got lost and might never find my way out. It reminded me of the full moon night, when I had felt like the area around our house and lake was an inescapable jungle. And it reminded me of something more, something I still would not remember.

The others were excited about going to meet the boys there, but I was only going because I wanted to look after Carina. Things were normal with us, as if the conversation in And Sons had never even happened. Possibly Carina had forgotten all about it. Possibly I shouldn't have been so annoyed in the first place. But, no matter how our relationship was going, I didn't want her to get too drunk again.

The plan was that we would all buy some cans, and the boys were going to bring food as well and light a camp fire. The other girls acted as if they did things like this all the time. They talked as if they'd had lots of boyfriends, and spoke about going out to meet their friends any time they liked. Carina and I had followed Sarah's lead on conversations like this from our first day at St Mary's, and we tried to act as if our lives had been just the same. Maybe the majority of it was just talk, but the others went on about sex quite a lot. That was the sort of conversation we were having as we walked towards the woods: what it felt like when you slept with someone for the first time.

'The first time won't be that amazing,' Michelle said to Carina, with an expression designed to intimate that she was an expert on the subject. 'You'll probably be a bit sore afterwards. A bit sort of... stingy. But you'll get used to it. And then, before you know it, you'll _really_ like it. You'll be annoyed that you didn't start doing it sooner.'

Carina and I gave each other funny little looks then. I don't think we could help it, but none of the others seemed to notice. They were all too busy giving Carina advice. Of all of the subjects Carina spoke about at St Mary's, it was never boys, until Rob.

We both reached into Margaret's backpack around that time, and pulled out cans of cider. I had been so intent on my plan to keep Carina from drinking, but I wanted to drink as much as she did. It was weird, because we used to hate how much the mothers drank. I even remember one argument, when we were about ten, and Carina emptied their last bottle of red wine down the sink. My dad had just gone back to Dublin, and the mothers had been drinking since he left. I was as annoyed with them as Carina was, because when they were drunk, we had to do everything for Graham and Michael. We had already made them breakfast, lunch, helped them learn their spellings, gotten their school uniforms washed and ready for the next day... We had homework of our own to do, and the boys were running around the house, driving us crazy.

We both wanted to do it, but Carina was the one with the courage to pick the bottle up off the table, and pour it away. Pauline's and Therese's heads snapped, as if we'd woken them in the middle of the night. I was reading the Hobbit at the time, and I thought that they were like the dragon, and the wine was their treasure.

They were screaming at Carina, calling her horrible names, names I don't want to remember. I let them scream for a while, but it wasn't too long after the fight with the other schoolchildren by the lake, and I decided to defend her the way she had defended me.

As soon as I stood in front of her saying that it was my idea, Carina began to cry. They were tears of relief and shock, and I think it was because she had not expected me to come to her defence. The mothers sat down and became teary and apologetic, and they went out to buy some more wine. When they came back that evening they came with not only wine, but with fried chicken and chips for dinner.

Anyway. It's hard to do this. One thing reminds me of another, and it's hard to stay on track. So there we were, on our way to the woods to meet the boys, and Carina and me were drinking cider, one can after another, even though we had both been so sure, at ten-years-old, that we would never be like the mothers.

When we arrived things were awkward. We gathered in a spot in the centre of the forest, where all of the trees had been cut back to make a picnic area. The boys didn't seem to know what to say to us. They were trying to light the camp fire, and they were arguing about the best way to get it started. Any time one of us girls suggested something, they looked at one another with really stupid smiles, as if to say, 'What would they know?' But they didn't know much, either, and in the end it was Lucy, the former Girl Guide, who got the fire going and the sausages cooking. After a while, when we'd all had a bit to drink, everyone became relaxed.

Margaret was chatting with Aaron, the guy who she had been sitting with in And Sons, and when we'd been there for about an hour the two of them walked off into the woods together. Rob had been throwing nervous glances at Carina all night, but as soon as Aaron left with Margaret, he seemed to decide it was time for action, and he moved closer to her and whispered something in her ear. She nodded, and they both stood up and went into the woods.

There was a lad there called Gerard. He kept telling us to call him Ger, but even his friends called him Gerard. I think he was supposed to be there for me, because he sat close to me and kept trying to talk to me, but I wasn't interested in anything he had to say.

He kept telling stupid stories about pranks he had played in the GAA club dressing room, like hiding someone else's shoes or putting itching powder in their shorts, all things I didn't think were true, because as far as I was concerned the only people who did things like that were characters in comics. And why would he _want_ me to think he had done such idiotic things? Did he think it would be endearing? Did he think it would be a turn-on? He was a bit overweight and had bad skin, and I probably would have been happier sitting on my own than having to talk to him.

As the night went on the others disappeared until it was just Gerard and me sitting by the fire. Michelle and her guy had barely gone when he moved right next to me and started rubbing my leg. I was shocked at first, because I couldn't imagine anything I said or did that would have made him think I liked him. I didn't stop him, although I don't know why. He leaned in to kiss me, and I thought that he might start off gently, maybe a little peck on the lips or something. But his tongue – my God, he just shoved it right in there. He had no idea what to do with it, either, once he had it in my mouth. I think he was probably trying to see how far he could get it down my throat before I gagged. I kept trying to redirect him, to get him to kiss in a different way, but that made him really annoyed, because he pulled away and said, 'Have you never kissed anyone before?'

I shot him a filthy look. 'Of course. No one as bad as you though. What are you trying to do – cut off my air supply?'

He stood up, went to kick at an empty can, and missed. Even though it was dark, I could tell his face was turning purple.

'Yeah, right. Bloody frigid bitch,' he said, storming away from the fire.

I couldn't see where he had gone, because it was so dark everywhere except where I was sitting, so I just sat there, taking sips from my can of cider, even though it was making me feel sick. I was annoyed. I was supposed to stop Carina getting drunk and going off with Rob, but instead I drank at least as much as she did and just let her go off into the woods. I sat there, frustrated, in front of a dying fire, and hoped she was all right.

I couldn't see any more firewood – at least, not any that I wouldn't have had to chop down from a tree – but I don't think I would have trusted myself to throw any on, anyway. I was cold, drunk, and I had to pee really badly. I was in the middle of the woods and there were so many places I could have gone to the loo, but I was reluctant. What if Gerard was out there, lurking? What if he saw me? Anyone could see me. I wanted a nice, white, pristine toilet bowl. I didn't want to squat. But I kept drinking and drinking, even though I knew it wouldn't make things better, and eventually I knew I wouldn't be able to hold it in much longer.

I headed for what looked like the most thickly forested part, and went in a little bit of the way. I was just unbuttoning when a bird or a bat – something dark and winged, anyway – flew out of the branches above and panicked me, so I went even further in, and squatted.

After a few minutes my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I saw them – Carina and Rob – a short distance away.

He was stroking her face and kissing her. 'You're so lovely lookin',' he said in a really strained voice. 'You're perfect.'

She didn't say anything. She just kissed him hard on the mouth, as if all she wanted was for him to shut up. I saw his hands go under her top and I knew I should get out of there, but when you've had a lot to drink it takes some time. Things between the two of them were happening really fast as well so, even if I had left straight away, I would have seen a lot. They lay down on the ground, and his hands were up her skirt, pulling off her underwear. He kept stopping to look at her every few seconds, asking, 'Can I touch you there?' and 'Can we do it?'

She would just nod, and smile, and go back to kissing him.

I stopped peeing but I didn't move away. I wasn't really looking at what they were doing, more at the expression on her face. They started having sex. Her eyes were wide open, and she pushed him off her and sat up.

'Are you all right?' he said. 'Did I hurt you?'

She gave him a look, then. I can only describe it as sickly and pleasing. She turned around and went onto all fours, and I still couldn't look away. He went onto his knees, behind her rear and thighs, checking his condom before he went into her again. I think I knew what I'd see, as soon as she turned around. I think I was waiting for it. There was no longer a sickly smile. There was just her beautiful face, all screwed up, completely distorted, because her eyes were shut so tight.

I buttoned my jeans and put my hand over my ears so I wouldn't have to hear the sound of his heavy, shaking breath, or the things he was saying while he moved behind her. I walked away as quickly and as quietly as I could. When I got back to the picnic area, Michelle, Margaret and Lucy were back. Carina followed soon afterwards, and we went back to St Mary's.

≈

Things went on like that until the term ended. Sometimes we all met up in the woods, and sometimes we went to the house where the Mulligan brothers lived. I started to see Gerard as well, even though he couldn't kiss, and wasn't particularly nice or attractive. We never had sex. We messed around a lot, but I never let it get very far. To be honest, I felt sick even kissing him. I think I only really went with him so I wouldn't be on my own when Carina went off with Rob.

Oddly, my nightmares didn't begin after seeing her in the woods with Rob that first time, just as they had not begun after seeing Sarah with her bundle in our woods, or seeing Carina go into the woods with Colm. They began after my first proper kiss with Gerard – or during, I suppose.

It was a Thursday night and we had all left the grounds earlier than usual, still in our uniforms. We knew we would get away with it because one of the older nuns had passed away, and all of the other nuns were either in their chapel or else organising the funeral. We didn't care about much except that it would be easier than ever to sneak out. We didn't consider ourselves callous, because we had never even seen the nun in question. She had been bed-ridden for over a decade.

We phoned Rob before we left, and by the time we got to the woods he and all of his friends were waiting.

As the evening passed it went the way it often did, with Gerard and me by the fire. It was a better affair than the first fire, now that we had gotten the hang of things. He didn't bend over and try to kiss me, or act anything like he had the first time. He just looked at me after everyone else had disappeared and said, 'Come on, let's go for a walk,' and I did. Simple as that. He held his hand out to me, I took it, and walked along with him, feeling terrified. His hands were clammy but I knew I couldn't really hold that against him, and he had on so much deodorant that I sneezed a few times.

He led me far into the woods without saying anything more. Even when he stopped he didn't say anything, just wrapped his arms around my waist and pushed me up against a nearby tree.

A small part of me leapt, but in a good way, a new way that I had not experienced until then. I wish I could say it was because of Gerard, but in truth it was because I had seen a televised adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover, where Mellors makes love with Constance against a tree. In the book the section was different, and having many times compared the two, I had decided I much preferred the television version, possibly because I had a thing for Sean Bean.

So we were there, Gerard and me against a tree, and he became rougher with his kisses, but not so much that I asked him to stop. He was a bit better than before, even with the roughness. He had more to drink, so maybe it gave him some confidence or something. Anyway, I was quite enjoying it all, because I was pretending he was Sean Bean, which was easy enough to do as long as I kept my eyes firmly shut. I let him touch me, and I even let him take my hand and put it on his erection. I don't know how much further I would have gone, probably the whole way, but then I heard Carina and Rob. Well, I heard him more than her, making moaning noises, and she laughed a bit and said something I couldn't make out.

Gerard said, 'We should do what they're doing. Come on,' and he probably expected me to go along with it the way I had with everything else that evening, but as his hand moved to hitch up my skirt I had this sudden... I don't know, panic attack or something. I remember pushing him away from me, falling to my knees and trying to draw breath.

'Jesus, what's wrong with you?' he said, coming to his knees in front of me and pulling back my hair so he could look at my face. 'Are you going to be sick?'

I couldn't say anything, and he moved behind me and just kept holding my hair back, like he thought I was about to vomit. I don't know how long we stayed that way until I calmed myself down.

I said, 'I'm not feeling well. I'm going back to the school.' And I just went without waiting for the others.

Gerard walked with me, actually being quite nice, and he didn't leave me until we were close to the back wall, at the section where the pallets were piled.

He must have gone back and told Carina and the others I wasn't well, because they came back to the dorm soon after, but I pretended to be asleep and they left me be.

It was a waking nightmare, long before I ever closed my eyes. It had begun in the woods, a flash across my consciousness as I heard Carina and Rob. But images came soon after, and it made no difference whether I kept my eyes closed or open.

I can't think about the details too much these days, but for a long time after that night it was all I could think about. The dream – whether I had it while awake or asleep – was nothing amazing, nothing illuminating, really. But it terrified me. All it was, was me, in the middle of the trees close to Little Lake. I had a book in front of me, and a doll, but I wasn't paying attention to either. I was listening, hard, and crying. And if I had the dream while sleeping, then it would always become lucid. It always seemed that, at some point, I would realise I was dreaming and begin to think about it all. I would think: why are you even listening, Vivienne? If she laughs, you'll only be jealous. If she cries, you won't do a thing.

And I would think those same things, over and over, while I looked down from I-don't-know-where, at my book, and my doll, and the trees.

It was difficult to wake up even once I knew I was dreaming. Inside the dream I would try to make myself bite my arm, or pinch myself. When it didn't hurt I would think that I had succeeded. I would think that, now that I was sure it wasn't real, I would be able to take myself out of the nightmare.

But it was never until Michelle, Margaret or Carina shook me hard that I was able to wake.

Carina and me... it's hard to think about how we were back then. I didn't tell her I'd seen her and heard her with Rob, and I tried to keep things just the same, but I felt awkward whenever we were alone. There was one conversation in particular in which it became clear to me that I wasn't handling things very well.

It was a few days after her fourth time with Rob, and it was the first time we had been alone for a while. The other girls were finished showering and were all outside on the lawn studying for summer tests, and we were getting changed out of our gym clothes so we could go and join them. The two of us had been delayed because the teacher decided we weren't trying hard enough, and had made us do extra push-ups.

I was trying to get changed and into the shower as quickly as possible. I knew she would use this opportunity to try and talk properly – mainly because we didn't have many other opportunities to talk, at the time.

'So... you and Gerard,' said Carina. 'He's nice looking.'

I shrugged, tugging at my right trainer, trying to get it off, but the thing seemed to be in love with my foot. 'That's taking it a bit far, don't you think. Fine, he's not the ugliest fella in the world, but nice looking? I don't think I'll stay in touch with him over the summer or anything. Put it that way.'

I finally got my clothes off and went into a shower stall, thinking that she might give up on the conversation, but she raised her voice and kept talking to me as she went into the stall next to mine.

'Don't think I'll bother with Rob much either, over the holidays. He's getting a bit clingy, to be honest. Is Gerard like that?'

'Nah. He's about as bothered about me as I am about him.'

'It doesn't look that way. Did you... y'know? Did you do it yet?'

I had planned to wash my hair but I finished my shower quickly instead, so I could leave the stall and turn away from her. I couldn't have looked her in the face and lied, but it was easier to do as long as I stood away from her, over at the bench, drying off as fast as I could and saying, 'Of course. Loads.'

She turned off her water and looked out over the door of her stall.

'Yeah? We're always talking about me and Rob. You never tell me anything. Vivienne... What's it like?'

'You know what?' I said, glancing at my watch as if I actually had to hurry outside, 'I always think that sort of stuff should stay private.'

As I pulled on my jeans I could see how she hung her head. She stayed in the stall, even though she had finished. She turned away from me, saying, 'I think my hair could do with a wash, actually.'

I still wish I hadn't acted that way, but I finished dressing and went outside to the others, and left her alone. She didn't come outside to study with us, and I didn't see her again until dinner.

≈

We met up with Rob, Gerard and the others on one more night, just before the end of term. It was the last time Rob and Carina would see each other for months, and he was obviously upset. He gave her a bracelet, and a mix-tape he'd made. I tried not to laugh when Carina and I read the list of songs that he had painstakingly printed on the card. Almost every one was a song Carina hated, but she put on a wide smile and acted as if it was the best gift she'd ever received.

We were in Rob's brothers' house at the time, and Rob and Carina went upstairs while the rest of us watched TV and had some cans.

Gerard didn't make me a tape, or get me any sort of present. I hadn't really expected one, but I suppose it would have been nice if he had at least tried to look embarrassed when Rob gave Carina her presents. About halfway through the TV programme we were all watching he moved closer to me. He started to kiss me and I half-heartedly kissed him back.

The others must have thought we needed some alone-time, because they went off to the kitchen. I opened my eyes, watching them leave, wishing they would have stayed. Ever since the last night we'd been in the woods, Gerard had been a bit wild when we were on our own – with the slobbering, I mean. If I let him get too enthusiastic, then it was hard to get him off me so that I could get some air.

His hands were beginning to roam, and my stomach lurched – not in a good way this time – but I decided to let things go on for a while longer. I wanted to be sure of whether the nightmares had started because of fooling around with Gerard, or because of hearing Rob and Carina in the woods. It was an experiment, I suppose, a need for proof absolute, like my earlier scrutiny of families.

First his hands were on my hips and waist, and on my rear, but then he started to move upwards, kneading my boobs in this way he did, no matter how many times I asked him to do it differently. He almost pressed them back into my chest with the force, and the way he pulled at my nipples was close to painful. He seemed to think that just because they got hard, it meant he was doing something right. After a minute or so I could no longer stand it, and I tried to move my body away from him.

I said, 'Oh, wait a minute, I want to watch this bit.'

Father Ted was on the television. It was the episode with all of the rabbits, and the bishop with the rabbit phobia, and I really did want to watch it (although even if it was something else I probably would have pretended to be interested).

'Why don't we have a goodbye to remember?' he said, with his hands still on my breasts.

I laughed out loud and removed his hands.

'You rehearsed that line.'

'No.' He sounded really irritable. 'Well, why not? Look, do you want to stay going with me over the summer, because I can always find someone else.'

'Find them, then. I'm sure there's a queue o' them dying for you.'

He looked at me with a hard, horrible sneer on his face. 'Have a good summer, so,' he said. 'And give my best to your cousin. Spoiled little bitches, the pair o' ye.'

He slammed the front door as he left the house.

I sat waiting for Carina, hating Gerard for called us spoiled. It reminded me of Sarah calling me the same thing, so many times before. It conjured images of burnt dinners, of gone-off fruit. Soiled, with an added P.

It didn't matter as much as it might otherwise have, though, because he had confirmed it for me: his touch didn't send me back there. It was only the forest, and hearing Carina without being able to see her, that had brought the memory back. Gerard didn't mean enough to me for his actions to send me into a panic. Gerard didn't mean anything at all.

The next day we went home, and as soon as we got there it was as if Rob no longer existed. The mothers barely acknowledged our return, and they didn't even ask Carina where she was going when she left to call at the Barry farm on our first day back. The whole summer both of us could do whatever we wanted. Carina would go out in the middle of the night to meet with Colm, but she never told me anything about what they did together. I suppose she was still smarting from the last time she had tried to talk properly with me.

Sarah seemed to have disappeared altogether. She could have been in Australia, still, or she could have been anywhere. There were no phone calls or letters from her, as far as I was aware. I never asked the mothers if she had been in touch, and I don't know if Carina asked them, although I imagine she would have wanted to just as much as I did.

I thought that I would be expected to spend the summer looking after the boys, as usual, but the mothers had sent them off to a tennis camp, and they were gone for most of the holidays.

I wasn't alone, though. On the third morning of the holidays I ran into Jennifer in the newsagent, and after that I spent most of my time with her and Susan and some others.

We hadn't been friends towards the end of primary school, but we hadn't been enemies, either.

The day we met up again she was picking up a magazine in the shop. I was behind her and I said, without thinking, 'That's the last copy, y'know. Trust you to nab it.'

She looked around, smiled in a friendly way, and said, 'Oh, it's you, Viv. I thought it was Susan. Sure, you can have it, if you want. Or you can read it after me.'

We wound up going to her house that day, just to drink coffee and chat, and we got along well. Over the years we had developed the same taste in music and clothes, and we found that we had a lot to talk about.

I spent most of the holidays going to Jennifer's house to watch TV, or we'd meet up by the shops or at the lake near the primary school, and spend the day wandering around. She was still much shorter than I was, so I sometimes felt like a giant when we walked around together. Men would stare, too, because she was so curvy and pretty. She lined her eyes in kohl, and she dyed her bobbed hair a deep black, but the most striking thing I remember about her at that age was the warm, motherly quality that surrounded her. Everyone was her friend, and if they weren't, they wanted to be.

It's hard to remember exactly how we managed to fill our time – I suppose we must have done more than the things I recall – but the days sped by. I remember, at the end of August, wishing that I didn't have to go back to St Mary's. It was probably the first time that I felt like I was leaving a friend.
Mr Considine

We had him for sixth year English. There had been complaints from locals about St Mary's girls being drunk in the village and acting inappropriately. I don't know if it was blamed on Miss Mahony or not, but it seemed too much of a coincidence to find she was no longer employed at the school when we returned after the summer.

Mr Considine, Miss Mahony's replacement, was introduced to us in the first assembly of the year, and immediately most of the girls were smitten.

I didn't understand it myself. He wasn't very tall, and he wore John Lennon style glasses and had brownish hair that was beginning to grey and recede. He was really into keeping fit, though, and I suppose he had an all right body.

Early each morning he went for a run, and soon about a dozen sixth year girls had decided that they were going to take up running as well. They followed him on his route around the grounds, into the village, circling the forest and back again to St Mary's. He seemed to like the company, and would chat with the girls as they jogged.

He was vegetarian, which Michelle, especially, thought was an incredible turn-on. He spent summers back-packing or going to Yoga retreats – or so he told us, anyway. Most of the girls hung on his every word, and loved how he insisted they call him Joe instead of Mr Considine. To me, he was always Mr Considine. And to Carina, as well, which was strange considering what their relationship became.

For Carina writing was always just a hobby. She loved to read, and could write for hours on end, but it was a way to pass the time, a way to enjoy herself. It never occurred to her to see writing as a profession – or at least, not until sixth year. Until then it had been science, physics especially, that really interested her.

It wasn't a new thing for Carina's essays to be complimented, but Mr Considine never read her stories aloud the way other teachers would if they thought something was good. I used to think that Miss Mahony was a bit jealous of Carina, because she would _always_ read Carina's stories to the whole class even though Carina begged her not to.

And Miss Mahony read the stories with an odd little smile on her face, shooting glances at Carina every now and then so she could be sure she was making her uncomfortable. Sometimes she would even critique Carina's writing in front of the whole class, saying things like, 'Well fine, you've got a poetic flare, but it's veering a tad towards the purple, don't you think,' 'I'd almost call it showoffy,' or, 'Well, I see you've not quite come to terms with the semi-colon, have you, Carina?'

Mr Considine, however, would give her a wink as he handed her essay back and say something like, 'Another beautiful read, Carina. Thank you for the pleasure.'

I suppose I knew from the first time I saw him look at her. When he called her name from the register at the beginning of his first English class with us, his gaze lingered a fraction too long. He reddened slightly and cleared his throat before going on to the next name on the roll call. I didn't get much of a chance to ask her about it, because she was still quite distant with me at that time, and we didn't have many conversations other than, 'Have you seen my maths book?' or 'Can you pass me the water jug?'

There were other moments I noticed between them as the term progressed. I should say, more correctly, that there were moments where he very obviously noticed Carina. There was one day when we were studying Macbeth. For the whole of our time at school, a teacher would arbitrarily choose students to read certain parts of the play or book we were studying, but we always knew when reading Macbeth that Carina would be asked to read Lady Macbeth's lines. Mr Considine would look a little too carefully at her while she read, and on the day she read Act 5, Scene 1, my suspicions took more definite root.

There was a look on her face as soon as she began. She wasn't simply reading, ever, whether it was a book or a play. Her voice, and her way of expression, held the same magic as when we were children: bringing stories to life. She was the character, she was the moment, but never more so than on this day. Her voice had a hollowness to it that was both sad and mad at once, while she read, '" _Here's the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!"'_

She wasn't even looking at the book she held, just at her hand, only at her hand, with a gaze that was close to tears. Mr Considine's voice almost cracked when he spoke, saying, 'Oh. Oh, that was... Carina, that was perfect.'

≈

It wasn't until after the Christmas break when I first saw real proof of something happening.

I was in the village with Margaret and Michelle, buying pens and A-4 pads and things like that. Carina wasn't with us. She had rushed away from the rest of us after mass, telling me she was going to meet up with Rob, but something in her voice told me that she was lying. The rest of them wanted to have lunch in Mulligans, but I was sure I had spied Mr Considine's car as we were walking towards the pub, so I pretended that I'd left something in the shop and told the others I would catch up with them.

I soon found the car again, parked in a little lane a short way from the village. I couldn't get too close, but I could see them quite clearly, Carina and Mr Considine, turned in their seats to face each other. I noticed that she had taken her school tie off, and let her hair down, and that her shirt had a couple of buttons undone. He handed her something in wrapping paper and she smiled at him. He started his car up and I stood behind a tree, peering out just enough to watch them drive off together.

≈

It really did begin just after Christmas. Carina had known for a long time that he had feelings for her – because of all the extra attention he paid her, and all of the time he spent tutoring her on afternoons and weekends. He had kept his hands to himself for weeks, and that, Carina told me, was why she believed he really did care about her in a deeper way.

She knew all of the stories – sleazy teachers taking advantage of naïve teenage girls – but it wasn't like that. Yes, he might have given her a Christmas present (a collection of Rainer Maria Rilke poetry) and yes, he had shown her some poetry of his own, but it was Carina who made the first move and asked him if he would like to take her for a drive.

He drove her to a secluded place that she knew about through being there with Rob. A trail led through the woods and opened up onto a little clearing, just big enough for a car to park, alongside a river.

Many of the trees were bare, with little droplets of melting frost falling from their branches, and for a long while Carina just gazed at them, until Mr Considine moved their seats back and leant over to kiss her.

His stubble was scratchy, but he kissed her so gently that it didn't matter. He seemed to press his lips forward, she said, almost pursing them the way she imagined old people did when they kissed. In the car stereo he had Led Zeppelin playing, turned down really low, and Carina found herself singing along to When the Levee Breaks in her mind. He had a leather hip flask with him, filled with cognac that warmed her belly – which was just as well, because the car heater was broken – and she stopped kissing him every few minutes to take a drink.

They made love that day in the passenger seat of the car. He peeled her underwear off, but they kept the rest of their clothes on. One of Carina's knees was pressed so hard against the door handle that it bruised while he moved between her legs, and the teeth of his open zipper grazed her groin. His kisses changed once they began to have sex. They were no longer soft and tentative, but wet and wide, with a way of pulling her tongue and even her breath into his mouth, a way that felt like he was trying to consume her.

She didn't go into many more details, but she did say they had sex quite a bit after that, mostly by the river. He always felt guilty afterwards, but she managed to make his guilt disappear. She would remind him that she was seventeen, which was the age of consent, so it wasn't as if they were doing anything wrong. If they had met under different circumstances, she told him, then they could be together properly.

I doubted that she would actually be interested in him if there were no barriers to the relationship. There was no reason why she couldn't be with Rob, or with Colm, but she didn't seem to be interested in either of them any more.

It was Easter when she finally told me all of this. We were on the coach together, on our way home for the holidays. I didn't say much in return. She didn't ask my advice, and I didn't give it. I was just glad she was confiding in me again, even if it was only because we were stuck on the same bus.

I never did ask Carina if she felt the same as I did on bus and train journeys. For me, the travelling was something I never wanted to end.

That day, she gazed out of the window, and her expression was blank the whole time. I just let her talk, thinking that it felt as if she was talking to herself.
Easter

The first thing we noticed as we stepped out of the taxi and onto the driveway was that the bins were overflowing. When we went into the house we saw that some paintings had been removed from the walls – ones we knew had been his favourites – and any family photographs that had included him were gone.

The mothers were upbeat when they greeted us. Therese even hugged us both, which was something that hadn't happened for years. The boys were in the living room playing a Mario Brothers' game on their Nintendo and it was Graham who said, barely pulling his eyes away from the screen, 'Not like it'll make much of a diff, girlies. We all practically live here, anyway.'

Carina and I looked at each other.

'What do you mean?' she asked.

'Haven't you been upstairs, then?' said Michael. 'We moved most o' your stuff into Viv's this morning. Me and Graham are in together as well. You'll have to figure out how the hell you're gonna fit all your books in though, Carrie. Pauline boxed them up, but they're all still over at the bungalow. We were gonna carry them over for you, but she said leave it till you've cleared enough space for them in Viv's room.'

We ran up to my bedroom first. Some of Carina's clothes were in bags next to my wardrobe, and both beds were covered with matching sets of brand new bedclothes. A box filled with her tapes and CDs was next to the stereo.

We walked along the corridor and saw that Therese's things were in the bedroom across the hall from Pauline's. Therese often stayed in that bedroom, but it was clear that she had now moved there permanently.

The boys, like Carina and I, had slept in the same room quite a lot of the time, but now the room most definitely belonged to them both. Michael's posters of half-naked models gazed seductively across the room at Graham's posters of sports cars and motorbikes.

We rushed downstairs and were barely through the kitchen door when Carina asked, 'Why now?'

Therese shrugged and said, 'Will we all have some coffee? I've got a nice chocolate gateau.'

'Why not now?' said Pauline. 'And speaking of now, I'd say now is the perfect time for you two to go across the way and do a bit of work. Rooms could do with a bit of a freshen up.'

Carina's mouth hung open. 'But... why freshen it up if we're all over here? What are you doing with it? You don't actually think anyone would want to buy it, do you?'

'Look, what else are the pair of ye going to do with your Easter break? Laze around all day listening to bad music and eating us out of house and home? Just go over and clean it up. There's paint and everything over there in the kitchen. We've done most of it already. It's just your bedroom and the kitchen left, Carina, but sure, you'll easily see what still needs doing. Maybe give the garden a bit of a tidy as well.'

'You said... you said the two of us should go over. You mean... you mean Vivienne too?' Carina asked. She was looking blatantly at Therese while she asked this, but it was Pauline once again who answered, saying, 'Of course Vivienne too. Why should she get to sit on her arse while you do all the work?'

'But why _do_ all the work in the first place?' I pressed. ' _Are_ you selling it? There's not anyone moving in, is there?'

'No. No, we're not selling it,' said my mother. 'And as for anything else, well who knows? Maybe we'll set up a reiki clinic like your man up the road. Sure, we couldn't do a worse job of it than he did.'

They both started laughing and Pauline passed a magazine over to Therese, saying, 'Go to page thirty. There's an article you'll like.'

≈

We spent almost the whole of the first week of our holidays over there. It took us a while to get properly started, because when we went to get the books we realised that paint stripper had been spilled all over them. It could have been an accident, I suppose, because the books were both on top of and just under the kitchen table, and the paint and the stripper were sitting on top. The bottle of stripper had destroyed the table as well, but I couldn't understand how it had managed to get into every box, the way that it had, when it spilled.

Neither of us said anything about how odd it was, we just spent hours trying to salvage as many as we could. But even the books that hadn't been completely soaked through smelled terrible, and we both knew we were wasting our time.

It was funny how, out of the hundreds of books we went through and found irreparable, the box with the children's books upset her the most. Sleeping Beauty sat on top of the box. When she picked it up and looked at me she was close to tears. The colours had run, and maybe if both of us hadn't spent so much time reading that book, we wouldn't even have recognised the cover.

The first day she got it, on a shopping trip to Cavan town, we couldn't wait to get it home. We made plans the whole car ride back, even though we were only going to do the same thing we had with every new book that year.

As soon as we were allowed outside we took it to the lake, where we sat cross-legged for hours while she read it out loud. Our aim was to get to know the book off by heart, because afterwards we were going to act it out.

The first attempt at bringing the book to life didn't last very long, because we argued over which of us was going to play the wicked thirteenth fairy – the one who, angry at not being invited to the party, says the princess will prick her finger and die at fifteen. Instead we skipped ahead, and took turns playing the part of the twelfth fairy, the one who eases the spell and declares that the princess will not die, but only fall into a deep sleep for one hundred years.

When we tried again the next day, we skipped ahead even further, to the part where the prince arrives at the castle, but even there we came to what could have been an impasse. Both of us wanted to be the princess, neither of us wanted to be the prince. We tossed a penny in the air, and I lost. I said we should go for best of three, but still I lost. When I suggested going for best of five, Carina indulged me yet again. Even I realised that the odds were against me when I lost every single coin toss. I gave in and agreed to be the prince that day, journeying to the overgrown castle that had stood still in time, to kiss Princess Carina awake after her long sleep.

She blinked, stopped looking at me, and put the book back into the box. I kept looking at her, trying to think of something to say to make it better. I thought I should hug her or at least reach out and squeeze her hand or... something. I was afraid she would push me away, though – or worse, that she would stiffen, and not hug me back. After a few seconds she took the box outside and set it down beside the rubbish bin.

When she came back in we cleaned out the cupboards and scrubbed the floor and the counters and even the light switches, before painting the kitchen walls. After that, we cleaned and scrubbed most of the other rooms, even though they had already been done. We should have gone into Carina's room next, but instead we went out to the garden to cut the grass and weed the flowerbeds, taking as long over it as we could.

Three days had passed before we went into the room. I looked carefully at the keyholes on every door, because I had noticed that the wooden box no longer sat on the kitchen windowsill. Now there was a key on the inside of the door, as in many people's bedrooms. There was no label on the key, any more. It sat on the inside of the lock as though it had always been there, and I know Carina noticed, because she tried so hard not to look.

Neither of us said anything, we just opened up a tin of paint and got started. The fumes were quite strong, but she didn't move to open the window and I didn't dare ask her if I could. Instead I left the bedroom door and the back and front doors wide open.

Every now and then Carina would pass me a drink from a hip flask. It was probably a present from Mr Considine, because it looked like the flask she had described him as having. It tasted like neat Southern Comfort, which I found too sweet but Carina loved. I drank it, anyway, every time it was offered.

When we had nothing left to paint except for the area of the wall around and behind the bed, Carina decided that she wanted to throw out the bedclothes that still covered the bed. While she was out of the house I moved the bed away from the wall and went on with the painting. She was gone a long time, and when she came back she said nothing, just lifted up her brush and continued. But she was taking more sips from the flask.

'The fumes are getting to me,' I said. 'I need to get out for some air.'

She barely nodded and I went outside.

Maybe at first I really did want some air. I can't remember for sure, but I do recall that while I stood in the doorway I just stared and stared at the bins. I don't know how long I stood there just gazing at them before I walked over and pulled off the lids.

Carina's bedclothes were piled on top. I could see that she had gone to some effort to try and squash things down, but there was so much in the bins that it never would have worked. I played a stupid game with myself, telling myself that I was going to try and push things down a bit more and then take the bins to the front gate, ready for collection the next morning.

But I was pulling the bedclothes out. And then I was pulling everything out. My hands were covered with waste and I didn't care. I kept pulling the bins apart, not able to stop myself. Even when I found his shirts, his socks, his underwear, I still didn't stop until I was sitting on the ground, surrounded by rubbish.

I was annoyed with myself because I couldn't even cry. I was shaking, I was biting my filthy fingernails, but I couldn't cry. Eventually I calmed down, and I stood up and did what I knew Carina must have done, just a little while earlier. I picked everything up, packed it back into the bins, and shut the lids down as tightly as I could.

≈

We left the room soon after that, knowing that it could do with a second coat of paint, but with no intention of going back. We brought the bins to the front gate. They were heavy, with so many books inside, and even then we had to leave most of the books in their boxes next to the bins and hope that the bin men would take them.

We didn't say anything about the books to the mothers, but Carina's mood was clear to all of us as we ate dinner and watched television that evening. Everyone went to bed early, and I was surprised at how easily I fell asleep. I just blanked my mind, closed my eyes, and drifted off.

If her hand hadn't moved so quickly to my mouth, I know that I would have screamed when she woke me. It was some time in the early hours of the morning, that time when dark seems darker, and every shape and shadow is a cause for fear. Her eyes were wide and puffy, and she had her other hand to her lips as she shook her head, warning me to stay quiet.

'It's all right, Vivvy. It's only me,' she whispered.

I sat up. Hearing her call me Vivvy after so many years had been more of a shock than her waking me the way she had, and it took me a few seconds to calm down.

'What's wrong?' I said.

Her breath smelled like Southern Comfort but she didn't look drunk.

'All the stuff I told you about me and Mr Considine,' she said. 'You never said what you thought about it all. Don't you think it's wrong?'

'I... Well, what do you want me to say, Carina? Jesus, you woke me up for this? Do you want me to tell you it's wrong, is that it?'

She shook her head, but then she nodded. She sat down on the edge of my bed so that I had to move over. Then she turned her body towards me again, and put her hands either side of my shoulders, so that although she wasn't touching me, I felt like I was pinned to the bed. I started crying then, because she kept saying, 'Vivvy,' over and over. As soon as she noticed I was crying she sat up straight and took her hands off the bed.

'Did I scare you?' she asked.

I couldn't answer at first, because I was working so hard to try and keep the noise of my crying down. I shook my head and after a while I managed to say, 'A little bit. But it's not your fault.'

'Isn't it?' she said. 'Vivvy, _do_ you think it's wrong? Should I be with him? Would you be, if you were me?'

'I'm not you. But people would think it's wrong, I think. He's a teacher, isn't he, so...'

She nodded. 'You're right. It's wrong. I have to finish with him. I don't even think I really like him, y'know. When all the girls were mooning over him at the start of the year I couldn't see what the big deal was. If we're both standing up, then even in flat shoes I'm taller than him. Only by an inch or two but it's still... y'know.

'And he's vain, too, always fishing for compliments about his body, as if it's something amazing and – and he gets so excited looking at me, like he makes these ridiculous sounds, like groans but high-pitched, if that makes sense. Sometimes it's so hard not to laugh at him when he's turned on. Coz it's like – that's what he's like. He's like a puppy. An overexcited puppy who's struggling to get to a treat, making those little whiny noises. I don't know why I don't laugh. Why do I do that, why do I worry about what's going to happen if I laugh? Why do I know that I must never, ever laugh at him?

'I think I'm only with him because – because he asked and I couldn't say no. Do you understand what I'm saying, Vivvy? Is it... is it like that for you?'

She turned and stared directly at me again. Her arms might as well have been either side of me still, because her eyes made me feel just as pinned down.

'Not really. I'm sorry.'

She shook her head. 'You don't get that? Maybe you really don't. Vivvy... I hope you really don't.'

She got up and went over to her bed.

My breathing began to even out somewhat, but I couldn't stop the crying.

'I'm sorry I scared you, Vivvy. Try to get back to sleep. I love you.'

'Night sweetie,' I said, knowing that there was no way I would get back to sleep. 'I love you too.'

For the rest of the night I think she was probably as wide awake as I was. I remember feeling so horrible, so close to the edge of madness that night, while the two of us pretended to sleep.

≈

When dawn came I heard her finally snore, but I walked over to shake her slightly, just to be sure. She let out a groan, pushed my arm away, and kept her eyes closed. Satisfied that she was sleeping, I pulled on a pair of slippers and crept from the house. Possibly I was too late already, but I had to try. I had been thinking about it for the last two hours of non-sleep.

As I drew closer to the gate I could hear the beeping of the refuse truck, but the boxes and bins were still by the gate. I rushed to get there, and quickly found the book. I stood there, holding it – with pages that could barely be parted, with colours that had run – and I smiled. I heard the engine of the truck as it came closer, and I ran back to the house in my slippers and nightgown, clutching Sleeping Beauty to my chest.

When I got back to the bedroom I quickly shoved the book beneath my mattress, crawled back into bed, and lay there with my eyes closed until the alarm clock went off in Pauline's room.

≈

Carina and I needed things for school, like books of past exam papers to help us study, things like that, and the boys needed supplies too. We thought that we were all going to get the bus into Cavan town to shop, but when we got up the next morning the mothers had decided that they wanted to drive to Dublin, and only the brothers were going with them because we couldn't all fit in the car.

Carina relaxed as soon as the Fiesta left the driveway.

'We can go out,' she said, throwing her arms around me. 'We can actually go _out_!'

I tried to act as happy as she seemed, and I went along with her into the town. It was hard to stop thinking about things though, and I wished I could just open my mouth, the way I knew Carina had been trying to the night before. I wished I could just open my mouth and tell her and ask her so many things.

Pauline had given me far more money than we needed for the day, so I knew that they were planning to stay in Dublin for longer, but I kept even that to myself. It was Carina's birthday, her eighteenth, and I didn't want anything to spoil her day.

We had been given mobile phones for Christmas that year, big and chunky the way phones were back then, but they looked tiny to us at the time. We were almost back at the house when Therese called me on my mobile to say that they were staying in Dublin for a few days. Carina didn't seem upset or angry. She didn't seem to care about anything except the fact that we could go to the pub that night.

We went to the Long House, and Jennifer and Susan were there along with Paddy Nally and Colm and a few others. We all sat together at a little table right beside the jukebox. Carina was having two drinks for each one that the rest of us were having, and at one stage she stood up and started dancing all by herself beside our table. Everyone thought it was funny except me and Colm. He kept looking from me to Carina, as though he wanted me to calm her down or get her to stop.

Carina met his eyes at one stage, and the way he looked at her seemed to make her angry, although all that I could see in his expression was concern. She reached for her drink, drank it in two big gulps, and began dancing again. She was dancing to David Bowie's China Girl – she was nuts about David Bowie – and singing the lyrics really loudly. Jennifer and Susan started singing along and got up and danced with her, but I don't know if they did it for fun or attention, or if they did it so that Carina wouldn't be dancing on her own. As soon as the song was over she sat down.

'I'm tired Vivvy,' she said. 'I'm going to go home.'

'I'll just pop to the loo first,' I told her. 'Only be a minute.'

'No,' she said, as she stood up and grabbed her jacket and her bag. 'Enjoy yourself. I'll feel really bad if you leave because of me. You have to stay.'

I started to say something to her, but she just walked out of the pub and didn't look back. I got up to follow her, but Colm put his hand on my arm.

'I'll go,' he said. 'I'll walk her home, Viv. Don't worry.'

Colm was only gone a few minutes when Susan and Paddy started arguing. It was over something ridiculous. Paddy had looked at some skinny woman with large boobs, and Susan was annoyed. But _everyone_ had gawked at the woman, because with the clothes she was wearing, and with how thin she was in comparison to the size of her chest, it was impossible not to notice. It escalated, probably because Paddy and Susan were both getting drunk, and they began to raise their voices so that everybody in the Long House was looking at our table. It wouldn't be long before we were all thrown out, so I decided to go home.

As I stood on the footpath I could see Carina in the distance. She was walking slowly, drinking something, heading for the lane that led to our house. Colm was walking next to her and as I followed, trying to catch up, I had trouble making out what it was that they were doing.

I saw Carina's arm extend, and Colm's too, but they didn't appear to be touching, and I wondered if they were fighting, maybe waving their arms in argument. As I drew closer their movements became clearer. Carina was trying to grab at Colm. She was trying to pull him closer to her, but I was surprised to see that, when he put his hands out, it seemed to be to keep her at a distance. He shook off attempt after attempt, something which surprised me at the time. I had almost caught up when she got a hold of his jacket and pulled him in against one of the trees, and moved her face to his, trying to kiss him.

I hesitated, thinking that he would surely succumb. I decided that I should just go back to the pub and leave them to it, but before I turned away I realised that he wasn't responding. He was not kissing her back, but trying to pull away. I watched him shake his head and heard him say, 'Not like this, Carrie. I'm not doing this with you any more.'

I couldn't hear what she said back to him, but I saw her hand snake around the back of his neck and she pulled him closer. When he next spoke it was in tones so low that I couldn't make out what he said, but whatever it was it angered her. She pushed at him, shouting, 'Shut up! Just shut up and get away from me!'

Even though he moved away she kept shouting at him.

'Who do you think you are, talking to me like that? Don't talk to _me_ like that. Don't talk to me like you feel sorry for me. Get away from me. Get away from me!'

Colm backed further away and attempted to speak. I couldn't make out what it was he was trying to say, because she was shouting over his every word. He seemed to be trying to pacify her, or to apologise maybe, but it was impossible to be sure.

'Shut up!' she cried with her hands over her ears. 'Just shut _up,_ Colm!'

I ran, then, and Colm must have heard my footsteps because he turned in my direction before I reached them. Looking somewhere between relieved and terrified, he spoke.

'I didn't do anything to her. I swear, Viv. She started off... I dunno... she went a bit... I swear, Viv. I'd never.'

Carina slumped away from the tree, looking from Colm to me.

'Oh, big surprise,' she said. 'Make sure _Viv_ darling still thinks you're an angel. Mustn't have _Viv_ thinking the worst of you. I thought he came after _me,_ but I suppose I should know better by now.

'Oh, but you don't know, do you, Vivvy? He only came along with me because he didn't want your night wrecked. "Why should Viv have to take you home?" he said. "Why should poor Viv always have to be watching out for you?" Wants to know why I don't just sort things, instead of forever bitching about you. Giving _you_ a hard time _._ Why can't _I_ sort things out, Vivvy? Why can't I?'

She rounded on Colm. 'If you think she's so perfect then why don't you do something about it? I wouldn't give a damn, if that's what's stopping you. Least then you might shut up going on about each other all the time.'

Colm looked at his feet, and I looked at Carina.

'You're pissed,' I said. 'You're making an arse of yourself, Carrie. Did he or didn't he do anything to upset you just now?'

Barely straightening up, she began to walk towards our house. Without looking at each other, Colm and I caught her up. The three of us walked together for a few minutes before she spoke.

'Colm didn't do anything,' she said. 'It was me. I'm just a bit... I dunno. Sorry, Colm. Sorry. Really, I am. Sorry.'

She kept apologising, saying the words as if they were humorous, pronouncing them in different ways each time: 'I'm shorry,' or 'I'm surry,' or... I can't even remember how many different ways she discovered to say sorry, and it was in no way funny to Colm or to me.

We were almost at our gate when she began to sway, and it seemed like she might fall over, so both of us took a hold of her and guided her into the house. We had just put her onto the kitchen couch when she fell asleep, sitting up but lilting to one side. I went to help her lie straight, and she didn't stir at all.

'She's dead to the world. I suppose... I'll just get her a blanket. Do you, em... do you want a tea or a coffee or something?'

Colm looked as awkward as I felt, probably because it was the first time he'd been in our house. He shrugged his shoulders.

'Yeah, a tea'd be good, I suppose. I'll boil the kettle while you get her a blanket. If you want. I mean... I can just go on home if you'd rather.'

'No.' I shook my head. 'No, of course not. The least you deserve is a cup of tea. Back in a sec.'

When I returned with some blankets and a pillow he was standing next to the kettle, waiting for it to boil. I went to get teabags, cups, sugar and milk, while he drummed his fingers against the counter.

'Is she all right?' he blurted, turning to look intently at me. 'I mean... y'know. Is she all right?'

'She's just drunk,' I said, pouring hot water over the teabags in the cups. 'We all act like idiots when we're drunk. Do you take milk and sugar?'

'No. Yeah. Bit o' milk, no sugar. Is it really just the drink, though?'

I took a moment to reply, concentrating on making the tea. When I finished I handed him his cup and said, 'Sure what else'd it be?' before going to sit at the table.

He sat directly across from me and kept his gaze on my eyes. Every time I tried to look away he would fix his eyes even more, raising his eyebrows as if it was some sort of challenge. I was relieved, actually, when he spoke.

'I've been thinking lately. When my mam was in hospital and I went back to the farm, the way the two of ye tried to help me when I was trying to fix the fences an' all. I was too proud to thank ye at the time, but... that's not the point. The point is, ye tried.'

'So?'

'So. Carina. She used to give me stuff every day. Even in school she'd leave stuff in my bag. Food, I mean. These crappy sandwiches she probably made herself. Mad combinations, like cream cheese and ketchup. There was one time I couldn't even tell _what_ was in the thing. She'd sneak them into my bag, and I knew it was her but I never said anything, not even thanks, till years later.'

'I didn't know about that,' I admitted. 'I remember her giving you our packed lunch, the day you told us to leave you alone, but I didn't think she gave you anything else. She still eats cream cheese and ketchup, y'know. She thinks there's something wrong with everyone else for _not_ liking it.'

He looked over at the couch, at Carina sleeping. 'She looked out for me the whole time my mam was away. No matter how many times I told her to feck off, she never got the message. I was glad, really. I was just... proud, y'know. She even squared up to me dad once, a while after we started going with each other.'

I looked at Carina then, as well. I don't know what answers I expected to get from her sleeping body, but I kept looking. 'I didn't know about any of that. She actually – what do you mean by squared up to him?'

Colm laughed quietly. 'She'd snuck round one evening, and my mam was making dinner. My dad was complaining, because it was only egg and chips, and Carina just... I mean, I can picture her face, to this day. She just exploded. We'd both seen him coming out of the bookies when we were walking back from school, but it was just normal, to me. For a second I didn't get why she was so mad, like I didn't see the connection between the two. But there she was, this little twelve-year-old ball of fire, shouting at a forty-year-old man, laying into him, saying to him, "Who do you think you are, Lord Muck, moaning on about egg and chips when you probably spend more money on the horses than poor Mrs Barry does on food." And on and on she went, and I swear, me and Davey were in stitches.

'Dad was calling her a stuck-up little so-and-so and all the rest, but she didn't give a shite. She had him bang to rights and even he knew it.

'That's why I feel like such a tosser, Viv. I feel useless. I _am_ useless, and I know it. Because I wish... I wish I had half her guts. She was worried about _me._ Worried about my mam and Davey. And all the time I knew she had much bigger problems of her own.'

The spell was broken, and I stopped looking at Carina. 'What are you going on about?' I said, trying to sound nonchalant, even opening a packet of biscuits and waving it at him with a stupid smile on my face, saying, 'Biccie?'

'You know what I'm going on about, Viv. I wasn't trying to be hard on her tonight, y'know, but she's going off the rails, and... well, so she should, as far as I can see, but... all I want is to help her to sort things. Only she seems to think I'm still the same dumb arsehole she can shut up with... well, with whatever. And when it doesn't work, when I tell her I don't want to go there any more, when I tell her I just want to be her friend, to help her, she acts like she doesn't know what I'm talking about. You're not going to do the same, are you? You know I'm not... I'm not hanging around the pair of ye for the laughs, am I? I just want to help, Viv. You can tell me. What was the set-up here?'

I placed the biscuits down as calmly as I could and met his eyes. 'You're going to have to be a bit clearer than that, Colm. What are you trying to say? In English, please.'

He stood up and started looking around, really closely, at everything. 'Ah, feck it, Viv. I'm only asking what everyone else has wondered. Fine, the talk's all eased off now, but we both know how people used to go on when we were kids. There's no smoke without fire, Viv. I know that better than anyone. Sure, nearly every word of gossip about _my_ dad is true.'

I shook my head and was going to tell him he had it wrong, but he cut across me just as I opened my mouth.

'I _saw_ , Viv. I saw. Back when me and Carina were meeting each other. She'd been sneaking round to my house, or else to the lake, and... I dunno. One night she didn't come. And she wasn't like that. She wouldn't have just not shown up. So I came here, instead.' His voice trailed off, and he stared at Carina again. 'It didn't make sense, then. I thought... I wasn't even thirteen, Viv. I didn't know what I was looking at. I still don't want to _think_ about what I was looking at, but with everything else...'

I was looking down at the table by then. I couldn't look at him any more. I couldn't look at Carina. Only at the table. Good things had happened there, and I decided to ignore the conversation, to ignore Colm, and remember the good moments. We had played card games there. We sat and read books and comics while we waited for dinner. We ate stew, and lasagne, and all of my favourite things. We sat and helped Graham and Michael with their homework. Once, when we bought fresh peas from the farmers' market, Carina and I competed to see who could shell the most pods in five minutes.

The weight of his eyes, though. I could feel him looking at me. I could feel him thinking about me, studying me, trying to figure me out while he waited for me to say something. I just needed a second, a moment, a minute... I just needed to _think_ of what to say to make him go away, because he was ruining it, he was ruining my game.

The family... we all knew how to do it. We all knew how to not talk, how to concentrate on the meals, and the books, and the card games, and the cups of tea. Why couldn't he just _get_ that? Why couldn't he just sit there, and drink his tea and eat a biscuit and talk about television shows or singers or the café owner's new car like a normal person?

I don't know how long I sat there before I conceded that he was never going to play my game. He was going to sit, and look at me, and wait, no matter how long it took. So I said, 'Jesus, I've no idea what's going through your head at all. You've some imagination, I'll give you that.'

He probably looked really annoyed. I don't know, because I still wouldn't look up at him.

He said, 'Don't do that. Don't just do what she does. Don't talk to me like I'm some stupid farm boy, Viv. You know what I'm trying to ask you here. I'm worried about Carina. Jesus, I'm worried about _you_.'

'Well, there's no need.'

He began to try and do it again, making his eyes heavy, staring at me once more, but this time I wasn't going to talk. To make that extra clear to him, I began to eat a biscuit, slowly and deliberately, while he stared.

I don't know what made him give up, but after a while he said, 'Right so,' and he stood and walked out of the room. I didn't follow him, just remained sitting, looking down at the table, eating my biscuit and listening to the slam of the front door.

The noise woke Carina and she sat up, groggy and confused.

'What's wrong? What's with all the noise? Jesus, my head hurts.'

I smiled as much as I could. 'Poor Carrie. Go on. Go on up to bed and I'll try and find you some tablets.'

She smiled at me with such a sweet grateful smile that it made me want to cry.

≈

The mothers delayed by another day, and then another. For the rest of the Easter break it was just the two of us. Neither of us wanted to go into the town, or to call round for any of the others. Jennifer's number flashed up on my mobile a few times, and I ignored the calls. It's easy to avoid people when you know they won't come anywhere near your house.

Carina was embarrassed about how she had been with Colm, even though she could only vaguely remember the details. She said she couldn't face seeing him, and I was relieved. I didn't tell her about the conversation he and I had, or that I couldn't bear the thought of seeing him, either. We stayed in and watched films and ate junk food, and didn't talk about anything much. My eighteenth birthday came and went, as well, over that week, and we celebrated with chocolate cake from the freezer and a Johnny Depp film we'd seen five times before.
The Office

I really wished she would get up and come downstairs, but I knew she wouldn't get up before at least eleven. She always slept late when she was hung over.

We had braved the town the day before to buy some food, and Carina decided that we should buy something to drink as well. We bought eight cans of cheap cider, she drank most of them, and now I was stuck on my own, trying to keep my brain quiet while she stayed in bed. TV didn't make a difference. The radio didn't make a difference.

It was just after nine when I made my first glide-by, walking along the hall, looking at the locked door, biting my lip and daring myself.

It's the oddest thing, the barriers that are built up. Psychologists would probably call it conditioning or something like that. All I know is, from early childhood, we were taught that we must never open certain doors.

There were punishments when we were little, but I have only vague memories of them – things like no dinner if we followed the mothers or my father into forbidden places, or a toy getting taken away – small things that mattered then, but that I can barely recall any more.

As the years passed we got used to what would happen if we went near those places, and it no longer occurred to us to disobey. I watched the mothers taking the office key from the windowsill, unlocking the door to answer the phone, and I knew I mustn't follow. I knew that, if I was alone, I must never answer the phone. I must never use the phone at all.

It won't make sense, probably, unless you've grown up in a certain sort of household. After so many years away from it, even I wonder why it took me until that Easter to consider going into his office. After all, I had long decided that things weren't as they should be. But the office... The office was out of bounds. Off limits. Even in my _thinking_ it had been off limits until that morning. I don't know what had changed for me that day. Maybe it was as a result of the conversation with Colm. Maybe it was because, even though my father no longer lived with us, even though his clothing and his personal items were gone from the house, the door to that room remained locked.

We had never peered in from the outside, other than from a distance. Even when he was gone back to Dublin, even when the mothers were nowhere to be found, we never tried to look into the room. I kept thinking: why this room? What was the point? Our secrets were only secrets in the sense that we didn't talk about them. But we all knew. Surely. Things happened in broad daylight. Things happened with the lights on.

It was well after ten when I finally took the key and turned it in the lock. Even then I couldn't turn the handle for a while. I just stood there, trying to stop imagining what I might find once I opened the door. I finally gave one quick push, but hesitated again immediately after, half-in half-out of the room as my eyes adjusted to the light. It was two colours, light and dark in perfectly separated lines, cast by the almost-closed venetian blinds.

I don't know whether the room was really as large as it is in my recollections. Computers were bigger in the nineties, I know, but that one seemed huge. The desk looked huge. The couch, the chair, the television, the video player, the filing cabinet... But even though all of those things are gargantuan in my nightmares now, the thing that shocked me most on the actual day was that the office really was just an office.

I was shaking as I walked to the desk, but I don't know if I was shaking because I was frightened about being caught. I think I just wished that it was someone else, and not me, who had finally gone into the room. I think I wished that Carina would walk in and find me there.

I hardly knew a thing about computers at the time, other than what I had learned in some extremely basic classes at St Mary's, and it didn't occur to me to even turn it on. I started looking through the drawers instead, surprised to find them all unlocked. It still took time to get them open just because I was shivering so much.

I can't let myself think in too much detail about what I found. No one needs to have those images burning into their brain. There were videos that I'm relieved never to have seen, but mostly there were Polaroids. I didn't know that I was crying until I saw my tear run across one of the faces, and fall off the edge of the thick photo-paper.

I did hear my mother's voice when she said, 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' but I didn't turn around, or even look up. I tried to open my mouth, after a few seconds, but by then she had crossed the room and snatched the photographs from my hands.

'You know you're not allowed in here,' she said, throwing the Polaroids into a drawer and pushing the drawer shut with steady, hard movements.

I looked at her then, and kept looking. She didn't look back. I hadn't expected her to, really. But it wasn't simply that she wouldn't meet my eyes. She wouldn't look at me at all, or at anything in the room. Her eyes were intent on the door, only, as she pushed me across the room and shut it behind us. It was not until the door was closed, and locked, that her eyes met mine.

'Why aren't you gone yet?' she asked.

I glanced at my watch. 'The taxi's not due for a half hour. Mam –'

Her fist clenched around the key. 'Don't start. You have no idea about what... Just don't start. Go and get your woman out of her pit and get ready for the taxi. Now.'

She put a hand to my waist again and pushed me towards the stairs. The pressure was hard, and it hurt, and I did feel frightened then, I know I did, because I remember how relieved I felt when Therese pushed through the front door and my mother suddenly let go of my waist.

I could see the boys through the open door that Therese had left behind her. They were carrying shopping bags but they set them abruptly on the ground. Their faces broke into wide smiles, and they came towards me as if they were about to give me a hug. They were at that funny age, though, and they pulled themselves back with sheepish grins and simply said, 'How's it goin'?' before heading into the kitchen.

Carina appeared at the top of the stairs then, with our bags. My mother looked from her to me, and went to the kitchen behind the boys.

Therese produced doughnuts and bacon sandwiches that she had bought on the way back, and we all sat around the table, but only Therese and the boys ate. Pauline's food, and ours, sat in the wrappers while we sipped at coffee. The taxi arrived shortly after to take us to the bus stop, and we went back to St Mary's for our final term.
Last Term

If Carina noticed anything wrong, she didn't say. She talked for most of the journey, but it was just as it had been on our way home – a one-sided conversation, a conversation that she could have been having with herself. She was talking about Mr Considine again, and about Rob. But maybe she was talking about other things, too. I don't know. Her voice was so fast. Everything was so fast.

The scenery was blurring by – the towns, the villages, the children on the bridge above the motorway spitting down at passing vehicles. I think I gripped my seat for a lot of the way. There was a moment when I wanted to shout at the driver, to tell him, 'Slow down!' When I opened my mouth, when I almost did shout the words, that's when I knew I was in trouble. That's when I knew my mind was all wrong.

I tried to slow things. I know I did. I looked at Carina so intently that she asked me if I was all right. But even her voice came out like a cartoon voice, a chipmunk voice on fast-forward, and I just nodded, feeling my stomach lurch, and I think I said, 'Yeah, go on, what were you saying?'

And my voice was odd too, but in the opposite way to hers: mine sounded the way my tapes did, when the batteries in my Walkman were running out. She didn't seem to notice, and I felt a sudden sense of elation. It's all right, I thought – it's all right to go mad as long as nobody notices. But then she started talking again and I wanted to slap myself. That was a gap. When she stopped, just then, that was a gap. I could have said something, then. I could have told her.

And then we were off the bus, and in another taxi, and she was looking at me bemusedly, taking my purse from my pocket so she could pay the driver. I hadn't noticed the car stop. I hadn't heard anyone talk about money. This was it, though. I was aware, now. I was watching her open my purse, I was watching her handing the notes over and saying, 'Keep the change.'

As soon as we left the car I would talk to her. I would grab the opportunity. This gap, I would make the most of.

But she was talking again. She was slipping my purse back into my pocket, saying, 'Are you all right?' again, and I must have said something in return. I must have, because she smiled, and laughed, and went on with talking, probably about catching up with people, finding out how their Easter had been.

I walked along, trying to listen, trying to concentrate on tangible things, like the weight of the bag I held in my hand, and the feeling of the strap of the other bag as it cut into my shoulder.

And then we were in the dorm, and Michelle had her piercings on full show, and Sister Catherine was talking sternly at her, probably about the piercings, or maybe about the posters Michelle was putting up on the wall. And Carina was doing her best not to laugh at Sister Catherine, and I was doing my best to slow my breath, and my mind, so that I could think: how do I tell her?

Maybe it was shock. Maybe that's just an excuse. It couldn't have been shock, could it, seeing as I had only found what I expected to find? Moments fast-forwarded to other moments, days went by, and still I said nothing. And in a way, letting myself give in to the shock, or the madness, or whatever it was, was easier. Because when I did manage to slow things, when I started to feel almost normal, that's when the images came back. That's when I knew: they would be etched there, forever.

But images, though. That's not the right word. I know it's not. Because they weren't images. They weren't photographs. They were real people. Captured. And in my mind they all screamed at me. In my mind they all berated me, and told me: talk.

It was easier to just... I don't know. I don't know how I went on the way I did, with it all racing, with everything racing, and yet said nothing. Maybe I told myself that I would tell her at the next opportunity. Maybe I told myself I would tell her after the exams. Maybe I told myself nothing.

He phoned in the first week of that term. It was Sunday afternoon and Carina was out, breaking up with Mr Considine. I stared at the number, wondering if it would be like everything else: if the moment would go, without me knowing where it had gone, if this would merely be one more conversation that, afterwards, I would not remember. I pressed the button, and said, 'Hello.'

As soon as he greeted me my mind began to work again. I knew why he was calling. I saw through his toffee-sweet tones, and understood the meaning of his every word, in a way that I had never allowed myself to before. He asked how I was. He asked how study was going. He asked about Carina. He told me to pass on his love to her. I said nothing much, except that I'd better go because I had to revise.

I waited for her that day, feeling sure that now my mind had settled, I would be able to tell her. And yet, when she came back and began to talk, I did not interrupt. I just let her go on for hours about how the break-up had gone.

≈

Mr Considine didn't have a mobile phone, so she couldn't get in touch with him that way. She had considered writing him a letter. That would have been easier than face-to-face, or even voice-to-voice, she thought. Except what if it got into the wrong hands? You always saw things like that in the movies, she said, or read about them in books: the letter that went astray, the written words that were undeniable, words that betrayed, words that revealed.

That first week back there seemed no way to speak to him; even a short moment alone seemed impossible. Before, he had managed to speak to her after classes, or to find her somewhere on the grounds, but once we returned that term there was always someone to interrupt, someone who might overhear.

With the way things were going, she wondered if he was feeling as she was, if he was happy to avoid her because he wanted to end things too. It might have been easier to just leave things, to never speak to him and let things simply wane.

But she waited, anyway, on the first Sunday back, at their usual meeting place. If he chose not to turn up, and end this thing in a cowardly way, that was fine with her. But Carina wouldn't do things that way. She would face the face-to-face, no matter how unpleasant the thought of sitting next to him in his dumb old car had become.

She stood by the tree in the little side street, the very tree where I had first seen them together. She wondered if he had been parked somewhere out of sight, waiting to see if she would turn up before coming out from his cover, because in only a few seconds he was there.

Once seated in the car, she found it hard to say what she wanted. He grabbed her hand immediately, rubbing it, talking breathlessly about how much he had missed her, how much he had longed for her over the holidays. Hopes of him wanting to finish things were gone. She would have to be the one, so. She would have to be the one to end the mess.

'I don't want to sound clichéd, but I _have_ Carina, I have ached for you,' he said, driving quickly, laying his hand over hers whenever he could. 'I've not slept. I've not eaten...'

He went on like that, not leaving room for her to speak, not asking her anything about her holidays, not asking her anything at all. Every few minutes she would try to speak, but it had never been the way of their conversations that Carina would say much. She only noticed it now that there was something she did want to say, and it irritated her. There was no place for her to speak. Everything was him, all him. It was just one more reason, she told me, for her to end things.

When he stopped the car at their spot by the river he quickly undid his seatbelt and moved closer to her, staring at her for a few moments, at her face, and her breasts, rubbing her bare knees with an exhalation of breath before un-doing her seatbelt and kissing her.

She tried to say no, but it came out as a sound, instead of a word, so she pushed at him. Instantly he moved back, his face perplexed.

'What's wrong? Is it your time of the month?'

She laughed at that, loud and hard.

'You sound like a teenage boy, do you know that? You sound exactly like every other idiot boy I've ever known.'

'Carina.' His eyes widened. 'What's... What's with the mood all of a sudden? This isn't like you.'

'And you touch like one. And kiss like one. Grabbing. Pushing. You don't _ask_ me. You don't ask me what I want. You don't even ask me how I am. You started off acting all Mr Sensitive, didn't you _? Oh, I'm a lover of the poetic form,_ says you. What does that even mean? What does any of it even mean? Bullshit. All bullshit. _Oh, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this story I've written,_ says you, but you _don't._ You don't want to hear my thoughts on what you write. Trust me on that one – you _really_ don't want to hear my thoughts on what you write. You don't want to hear my thoughts about anything –'

'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're right. I've just been so overcome by you. You take over every thought, every second, so when I see you... I get a bit overheated. I mean, can you blame me? I'll slow things down if that's what you want. All right? We'll take it slow.'

He moved his hand back to her leg, but this time his strokes were soft; he rubbed with his fingertips rather than with a flat palm. He said, 'So tell me then, how was your Easter break?'

He said it with smugness, she told me. He said it as if he thought he was indulging some adolescent whim, and that now, suitably mollified, she would behave the way he wanted. Everything about the way he said it annoyed her so much that she was about to say something more, she was going to tell him _exactly_ what she thought of him.

But movement caught her eye. She turned her head to see Rob approaching the car. He was running with his head down, his shoulders down, running at the car. By the time she had put her hand to the door handle, he was at the driver's side window, banging on the glass.

'Open up!' he demanded. 'Open up and get out of the car, ye sick oul fart!'

'My door won't open,' Carina said, looking at Mr Considine.

He was looking at her, and only at her. He wouldn't turn his neck even a millimetre in Rob's direction. His body seemed to curl, she noticed, while he said, 'I've put the child lock on. I'm just going to drive off. You hear about these things, couples getting attacked in the woods. Who knows who he is or what he wants.'

'I know who he is,' she said, watching Rob pull at the handle of the driver's side door. 'He's my boyfriend. Well, my ex. Sort of. And it's obvious what he wants, Mr Considine.'

He looked sternly at her. 'Your boyfriend? You didn't... Carina, tell me you haven't told anyone about our – I mean, not that I think – but... what? You've told him and he's – did you _tell_ him we meet here?'

He put his head in his hands and said, just loud enough for her to hear, 'Oh, you stupid man. You know how dumb they are at this age and yet still you do it.'

Outside, Rob was kicking at the car and wrenching at the door handle, screaming things she couldn't make out.

Carina pulled Mr Considine's head from his hands so that he had to face her. 'You're blaming _me_?' she cried. 'I was wrong. You've got nothing on the teenage boys. What are you going to do, so? Just sit here like a worm while he kicks your car to bits?'

'No. No, I'm going to do what I said to begin with. I'm going to drive away. I'm not going to dignify you _or_ your big ape out there by getting involved in whatever silly game you're trying to play with me. You might be able to make him act like a jealous fool, but I'm a bit more grown-up than that. So buckle up, will you? Or do you want to stay here with him?'

She said nothing, watching as Rob bent to the ground and picked up a rock.

'That's it,' he said, starting the engine. 'I'm going. Look, why don't you just get out of the car and _go_ to him, Carina. He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you.'

She put her hand on her door handle and found that the lock had released. She was halfway out when Rob banged the rock against the driver's side window, cracking the glass.

Mr Considine lunged over her, pulling her back to her seat. 'He's put the window through you idiot. Close the fucking door so I can put the locks back on.'

He made a small yelp as Rob reached through the broken window, opened the door, and shouted, 'Get your hands off o' her.'

Carina climbed from the car as Rob pulled Mr Considine out.

Mr Considine looked at Carina, crying, 'Can't you call him off? Tell him to get his hands off me!'

Rob kept a hold of the teacher but ignored him, staring at Carina instead, saying, 'This is who you've been spending your time with? Seriously? When Aaron told me he'd seen you drive off in a banger with some oul fart I didn't believe him. I honestly didn't believe him. At least now you see him for what he is, yeah? Some big man, yeah?'

His lip curled and his nose wrinkled while he looked Mr Considine up and down. Rob was taller, Carina noticed, by almost a foot. But it wasn't just his height, or his build, or even his youth that made her pay attention to the difference between the two men. It was not even the way Mr Considine's feet dragged on the ground while he was held fast by Rob. It was probably the fear in the teacher's eyes, or the sweat on his upper lip, or maybe even the wheezing gasps he was emitting that made her wonder: how had she ever managed to do the things she had done with him?

'I'm going to beat the shite out of you, you little sicko,' cried Rob. 'I'm going to beat the living daylights out of you, you feckin' pervy oul shite.'

'Jesus, Carina!' cried Mr Considine. 'Stop this now. It's not a game, Carina. Tell him to stop.'

She looked at Rob. 'Just let him go, Rob,' she said. 'You've at least a couple of stone on him. You'll only wind up in trouble, and for what? For _this_ guy? For your ego? Just let him go.'

She waited for Rob to let go of Mr Considine's collar, watching as the teacher fell to his knees clutching at his neck. She walked away, hoping that that would be it, that it was all over. She heard the door close and the engine start as she walked into the woods. Without looking back she could tell that Mr Considine was driving away from her, out in the direction of the road. She hoped that Rob, too, would go in the other direction, but she heard him running to catch up with her.

'Is that it, then?' he shouted. 'Is that all I get? Jesus, Carrie, I thought – I dunno what I thought. I'm an idiot, amn't I, because I didn't think you'd do _that_ to me. I thought you were better than that. He's from your school, I know he is. I've seen him in and out of the place. I've even seen him in Mulligans, ordering salad and bloody bottled water for his lunch. What did he do, promise you an A or something? You'd sink that low? Jesus, Carrie, he's about fifty.'

'Close enough,' she said, and kept walking. She was crying, but only a little. She tried to hide it by holding her head down, but it must have come across in her tone, because when Rob spoke again, his voice was softer.

'I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Carrie. You are better than that. I know you are. But you're... you're naïve, Carrie. You don't know how blokes are. You don't know all they want is – but you know now. You saw what he was like. That's not me, Carrie. I'd never... Jesus, I'd move the feckin' earth for you. You think I'd treat you the way he just did? And then just up and leave like that? How did he know I wasn't going to hurt you? How did he know I wasn't as big a bastard as he is? He just _left_ you and didn't give a damn. You should've let me sort him out.'

He said more, but it was all just the same thing, over and over. Mr Considine was a scumbag. Carina was naïve. Mr Considine was a pervert. Carina was an innocent. Mr Considine should be arrested. Carina had been taken advantage of. They were almost at the gates to the school before he gave up and walked away. She thought about calling him back. He deserved an apology, at least. But she just bowed her head, walked into the school, and never spoke to Rob again.

≈

Mr Considine's car turned in through the school gates the morning after their break-up, although it came with a few dents and scratches that still weren't repaired by the end of the term. After class she didn't wait around to speak to him, although it didn't seem as if he made any efforts in that direction.

I understood what she meant when she compared him to a teenager. He began to mark her essays down, and never once more asked her to read the part of Lady Macbeth in class. The more sensible path would have been to be extra nice to her, in case she should report him, but that didn't seem to occur to Mr Considine. I suppose, if either of us had the energy, we might have done the right thing and gone to the headmistress.

As for Rob, he had stopped working in Mulligans by then. I saw him a few times, sitting in the passenger seat of a van on his way to or from electrician jobs. Some of the other girls saw him in And Sons, but I never went there over that final term. Carina, too, was avoiding And Sons. She was also avoiding Mulligans, though there was little chance of seeing him there any more. She would tell me to go along with the others if they were going for lunch or for a drink, but I was never in the mood. Rob phoned her mobile hundreds of times, and he passed messages to her via Michelle and Margaret, but she never responded.

Carina's apparent conscientiousness, and my desire for alone-time, went very much unnoticed in St Mary's that term, because most of the girls were busy with study. From what I could see, everyone in St Mary's took the Leaving Certificate seriously. Some of the girls were promised presents like money, holidays, or even cars, if they did well.

I wasn't expecting anything like that, but he did phone a few more times over the weeks coming up to the exams, with the excuse of checking up on how we were coping with all of the study. As with his earlier phone call, my conversations with him were when I was at my most aware. I watched every word I said, and listened carefully while he asked the usual questions.

Again I didn't tell Carina, but I knew she knew. We would be out on the lawn and my phone would ring and off I'd go, not telling her afterwards who it had been. Any other time she would have asked me, 'Who was that on the phone?' But on those occasions she never said a word.

Perhaps I told myself that when we had gotten through the exams, then we could have the conversation, but I don't think so.

During the last weeks of term Carina spent her spare time reading over notes and textbooks. She was trying to cram as much as she could for the exams, but I don't think she was finding concentration any easier than I was.

At that time I wished she _would_ be on fast-forward again. I wished conversations and moments with her would race away from me. I was so aware of everything she did, when what I really wanted was to have her presence disappear. But she was there, bright and bold and un-ignorable.

Her frustrated sighing or the movement of her pencil as she made endless doodles... everything she did was louder than everything else, or at least it seemed so in my mind. If she slammed a book shut it was like the beat of a drum to signal danger. If she tapped her feet it was the sound of thundering hooves: thousands of horses carrying thousands of Carinas to wage war against me.

When she was quiet it was worse. I couldn't stand the silence of her staring at the same page for an hour; I couldn't bear the seconds that passed before her reply, should anyone ask her a question. Those blank moments seemed to go on endlessly, leaving me to wonder: what would come when the silence ended?

On the Sunday just before the first exam she slammed her copy of Soundings shut, and went for a walk. She didn't stop for a drink, or a rest. She walked for so long that the skin on her forehead and forearms burned.

I don't know if, when she set out, she intended walking to any particular destination. When we were younger she used to love daytrips to waterfalls or beaches. She would gaze at the moving water until she was hypnotized by the motion, and she wouldn't stir until someone touched her arm or loudly called her name. Maybe that's what she wanted that day – to be near rushing water, to hear the sound and watch the movement. Maybe she missed Rob. Or Mr Considine. She never told me the reason why, after hours of walking, she went to the clearing by the river where they used to park his car.

That day, she told me, just as she was about to walk out of the woods to the river, the hairs on her arms stood to attention. She slowed down and walked as quietly as she could, until she saw the glint of metal through the trees.

For a short while Carina became the watcher. For a short while she knew what it was to have that sick feeling in the pit of the stomach, as she stood as close as she could without being spotted, and looked into the car.

In the back seat, with her shirt unbuttoned and her skirt bunched up around her waist, was Sharon Masterson, a fifth year girl. She was sitting on Mr Considine's lap and kissing him, while his hands moved along her thighs.

Carina's face felt hot. She was embarrassed rather than hurt, she told me later. She felt like she had been made a fool of, and not just because of what he was doing. She wasn't insulted at the thought of him taking Sharon to a place that she had shown him, because she knew that it was only the same as what she had done to Rob.

The thing that made Carina feel most foolish was the book that sat on the front passenger seat of the car. It was a volume of Rainer Maria Rilke poetry. The only difference between this and the present that Mr Considine had given to Carina was the discarded wrapping paper that lay alongside. Carina's had been silver Christmas paper dotted with blue snowflakes, but Sharon's was pink and purple, with 'Happy Birthday,' scrawled in the pattern.
Part Three
This morning I sat far back on the beach. I let Major off his lead and he ran into the water, joining Gary. I hadn't meant for him to interrupt things. I hadn't even looked into the water when I let the dog go, but as I watched Major splash towards Gary and the girl, I wondered if Gary would think I had planned it that way.

They were standing a little bit into the water, at about calf-height, and the girl turned and squealed when Major got close. Major jumped up so excitedly that he knocked Gary off his feet. I could hear Gary's deep laughter as he walked Major back to the sand. The dog ran beside him shaking the water from his coat. The girl watched as Gary walked to me, and then she moved away and went towards three other girls who all looked about the same age as her.

'Sorry,' I said. 'Didn't mean to drag you away from your fan club.'

I think I sounded more sarcastic than I had intended – possibly even bitter – because Gary raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and said, 'Don't be like that, Viv.'

He looked me up and down and then said, 'Things are bad, aren't they? You've been wearing that old thing again.'

I glanced at my green hooded top. 'Least it covers the bump,' I told him, trying to laugh. 'Can you imagine if I stripped it off right now? People'd think I was a beached whale.'

He sat down beside me while Major ran off to investigate some sand a few feet away.

'You know they just come and start yapping to me if I don't get out early enough. She was asking how to go about getting into triathlons. You know her. Her baby sister was one of your class a few years back. Morgan or Madigan is their surname. Something like that.'

'And that's all you ever talk about? Triathlons? With a gorgeous – what is she – seventeen-, eighteen-year-old?'

He sighed. 'I don't know, and I don't bloody _care_. Jesus, you never used to be like this. What did you come down for, then? Because I'm starting to get the feeling it wasn't to talk to me.'

I stayed quiet. I came down because I thought he'd be swimming. I came down because I loved to watch his shoulders, cutting through the water. I came down to watch him, and to leave before he even knew I was there.

'I was thinking,' he said. 'All this – you were off from the second you found out you were pregnant, but this _time out_ or whatever it is you've decided we're having here – it only started when we got the scan. When I said we should name her Carina.'

I had nothing to say to that, so I changed the subject.

'I'm sorry if I was acting like a jealous idiot just now. I don't think you'd ever... whatever. They all try and flirt with you all of the time, and you don't even seem to notice. I know you're not some old lech or anything. I just wonder how much longer you'll wait for me to sort my head out. If you... I couldn't blame you, really, if you decided to go off with someone else.'

'As if. I wish you'd get it through your head, Viv. I wish you could see how you look to me right now. I wish you'd see that I can't imagine _ever_ wanting anyone else. Remember... remember the first time you took me back to your flat?'

I nodded, not able to help smiling.

'When you told me to go into the bedroom, and there was this copy of some old kids' book sitting next to a photo of Carina, but the book was wrecked. All the colours on the cover had run so I couldn't even tell what it was, and the pages were stuck together and I asked you what it was, and for a second – Viv, for a second you looked like you were going to break down. Just... collapse onto the floor and cry your eyes out. But then you kissed me and... I forgot about everything. I forgot to ask you why you were so upset. And it's always like that. You tell me little bits. Your cousin died, you were so close, like sisters. You don't see your family for reasons you say you'll eventually go into. Eventually. But just when I think you're going to talk properly, tell me the truth – you kiss me. You touch me. You take me to bed. Make me forget.

'I don't _know_ you, Viv. And all these years it hasn't mattered. Because I spent every day feeling giddy, feeling drunk just by being near you. So happy that nothing else mattered. But it does matter. Anything that can make you like this, it matters. Anything that can take you away from me, it matters.'

'Gary, I –'

'A speeding ticket came for you the other day. It was mixed up with the shop's mail and I didn't even... My brain was numb from looking at bill after bill, I suppose, and I had it opened before I copped on it was addressed to you. It's from a speed camera around Virginia, in Cavan. You grew up there, I know that much. What were you doing there?'

'Shopping. There was a... y'know, an outlet place. Baby stuff. So.'

'Really? So what did you get, then?'

'Seriously? You're going to cross-examine me now? What does it matter what I got? Why does it matter what I was doing?'

'Why does it matter? Have I not already told you why this matters? When I had that charity race in Virginia last summer you wouldn't come. And you got really weird about it. Come on, Viv, I know you weren't shopping. What did I – is it something to do with your family or is it... something I've done? Something you've done?'

He was watching Major while he uttered his last few words, and he didn't turn to look at me while I answered.

'What, like have I had an affair or something? She's yours, Gary, if that's what you're wondering. I wouldn't do that to you.'

'I know. I know that. I think I know that but... what's the big deal, then? Were you up visiting friends? Family? I've never even seen a photo of your folks, of anyone except Carina. What could be so bad that you can't tell me about it? Me, Viv. I love every bone of your body. I would do _anything_ for you. I've told you every little thing that's ever happened in my life and you still can't open up to me? Jesus, Viv, how are we supposed to sort this out if you won't tell me what's wrong?'

I pulled the top tighter around me and looked over at Major. Gary was still doing the same – looking at the dog. I don't know if I was working up to saying something, but we sat that way for a few minutes, so maybe I would have just continued the silence, had Gary not sighed, stood up and said, 'I'm going to start my swim. Come and find me when you're ready to talk.'

I didn't stay to watch him swim. I didn't even watch him walk away. I called Major, hooked his lead to his collar, and went back to the flat.

≈

Comfort clothes are no big deal, I know. I know that, but still I threw the top onto the bedroom floor, feeling guilty, feeling like the material was burning my skin. Things from your past. Little memories.

Orla, a teacher at my school, once told me she has an old shoebox tucked at the back of her wardrobe, filled with mix-tapes and letters from an old boyfriend she had in her first year of college. She has a great husband, one she would never leave in a million years. But every now and then, maybe after an argument, maybe when she's had a bad day, maybe for no reason at all, she pulls the box out and lets herself remember. Probably all women have an old shoebox filled with letters, tapes, ticket stubs and pressed flowers. We just hold onto these things.

I picked up the green hooded top, wrapped it back around me, and opened the wardrobe. Once more couldn't hurt.

I had gone to some effort with my hiding. It was a large shoebox, big enough for knee-high boots. There were no boots, but there were sandals that I had not worn for years. I lifted out the shoes and a layer of foam to reveal what lay underneath.

There was an A4 folder there, containing my list of Carina's books. There was a pen, in its original box, used for maintaining the book list. There was a carrier bag filled with brightly wrapped Christmas presents. There was a CD that I couldn't bear to play. The last thing, though, wasn't something I should need to hide from Gary. The last thing was a present from him: a book of baby names that he had given me on the day of our scan. I turned to the page that Gary had dog-eared, and looked at the name that he had highlighted: Carina.

If I called her that, what would I tell her if she asked about her namesake? Even if I called her another name she would, someday, ask about photographs and books that I can't throw away.

Maybe there would be no need to tell her about the bad times. I could tell her about that one summer, that almost perfect time, when Carina met Oisín. I could tell her that watching them fall in love was like watching stars collide.

But Oisín, though, might have phrased it differently. He might have described them as binary stars, lying close together, orbiting around each other in space. Or better yet, a spectroscopic binary, two stars so close together that many would mistake them for one.
Summer

It was Therese who phoned me, just after my last exam. The property was on the market – our house, the bungalow, the lake and all of the land – it was all for sale.

'Almost everything's been cleared out and boxed up,' she said. 'But it'll still be better if you and Carrie are there, just in case the estate agent wants to show people around. We wouldn't want them nosying around on their own.'

She didn't come out and say anything, really, other than those few sentences. Why did they do that? Pauline and Therese, they just glossed over things, went straight to the end of the conversation without ever having the beginning. It left me confused; it left me trying to figure out, quickly: which parts are missing this time? If I couldn't decipher what was missing, I wouldn't know what my next question ought to be, and if I didn't ask the right questions, I might be told nothing at all.

So I skipped that day, the way I had learned to do. I didn't say, ' _Hang on a minute_ ,' or, ' _Whoa, can you rewind_?' I just said, 'Where will you be, then? Have you found somewhere new already?'

Therese breathed in and out laboriously, in a way that made me think she wanted to make her boredom clear to me. I thought back to how she used to be – bringing me hot chocolate in bed, buying us apples for our teacher – but I couldn't recall when she had become almost exactly like my mother.

'The new place won't be ready for us to move into for a while,' she told me. 'Place in County Clare. You can go down and have a look at it though. I've left the address on the hall table.'

I sighed, again trying to decipher what she had said and what she had left unanswered, before asking the same question, only slightly rephrased: 'Where will you be until it _is_ ready?'

'Spain. We've rented a place till the contract on the new place is signed. It's not big enough for the whole lot of us. Little two bed thing, y'know. Sure, you and Carrie'll have a better time on your own. We've left plenty of cash for you. You'll have the place to yourselves the whole summer – other than viewings, if we get any. Be great. Like being grown-ups. Good practice for college.'

I tried to ask more about it all, but Therese wanted to keep things quick because they had a flight to catch. I had been told all I was going to be, so I did the only thing in my power: I hung up before she could.

≈

When we got home there was no For Sale sign out front, but I didn't find that surprising. If she had made a point of saying they wouldn't want people 'nosying around,' without Carina and me there to usher them, then the last thing they would want was neighbours knowing the place was on the market and coming for viewings just so that they could look around the house.

Carina went in ahead of me, saying she would put the kettle on while I paid the taxi fare. She had taken most of our bags in with her, and I walked slowly around the garden instead of going straight into the house. There was an incinerator bin next to the bins by the garage wall. We had never owned one before, that I knew of, and this one had been recently used. There were pieces of charred plastic and metal covering the bottom of the bin.

When I finally went in, it was to find that more of the contents of the house had been cleared. There was now only the basic furniture, and some of the shabbier things had been replaced.

The most striking thing though, was that the office door was open. I stood in the doorway for a moment, blinking. The room was cleared of everything but the telephone, which was left sitting on the windowsill. I shook myself and walked in and picked up the telephone, thinking at first that this must be a trick, that the line would be disconnected. Even once I heard it loud and clear – the ring tone – I had to keep listening for a few seconds before I believed what I heard.

The venetian blind had been pulled up completely, and through the clear window I could see the lake and the bungalow.

I had walked around for quite a while before entering the house, leaving Carina on her own inside. There was definitely enough time for her to have noticed the office, and even entered. Probably she did just as I had done, and disbelievingly picked up the phone.

She did not come downstairs until I entered the kitchen. While we poured our coffees I tried to think of a way to ask her if she had been in the office. Instead, we took our drinks into the living room and watched television.

≈

I don't know if we really intended to avoid everyone the way we had over the last days of our Easter holiday, but as soon as we saw Colm both of us pretended we hadn't.

We were almost at our front gate. The shrubbery was beginning to grow, so it wasn't until we were head-on with him that we could see him. I think it was the same for him, because when he did see us he did a funny kind of double-take. He nodded, so maybe he would have acted normally with us, but my face grew hot and Carina put her head down and wouldn't even look at him.

I couldn't make myself say a thing, although I wanted to more than anything – a feeling that surprised me and probably added to my inability to speak. He looked away from us, his face red. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked towards the town while we stood there at the gate, not moving.

Carina whispered, 'Thanks for not making me talk to him,' and I just shrugged and said nothing.

I watched him until I couldn't see him any more – the way his shoulders hunched, the way he kept his head set straight ahead and didn't look back at all. I think a full ten minutes had gone by before we closed the gate behind us and walked towards the town. The whole way to the supermarket Carina looked all around, still afraid of seeing him.

Our plan was to buy what would be quick and easy to cook. It was a really nice day and Carina had a craving for barbecue. We debated for a while, standing in front of the meat counter. The reason for the debate was the absence of our brothers. Even as they grew older, we had to look after them and cook for them when the mothers disappeared. This looked like being one very long holiday in which we would have to do nothing for the boys. The thought of cooking, therefore, was not welcome.

'It's not the meat I have a problem with,' I said. 'I mean, if we want a barbecue then we can't do without the meat. It's all the stuff like salads and all that crap. That's going to take us ages, and I can't be arsed doing all that on our first day of freedom. Anyway, I'm starving.'

'Ready-made coleslaw and potato salad's good enough for me. Long as we get a steak and barbecue sauce to go with it, I don't really care what else is on the plate.'

'Girl after my own heart.'

We both jumped when we heard Jennifer's voice. We turned around to see that she was wearing a friendly smile. There was nothing to suggest that Colm had told her what happened. I couldn't imagine what he would have said, anyway, about our conversation. Did people even do that? Did they even talk about us, any more, the way they seemed to when we were younger?

'Do you want to come, then?' asked Carina. 'The more the merrier.'

I don't know who looked more surprised: Jennifer, me, or Carina herself.

Jennifer said, 'To your house?' as if she was making sure that she had heard correctly.

Carina looked at me, and I didn't know what to do, so I tried to act casually and said, 'Of course to our house. Sure, where do you think she meant?'

Jennifer smiled hesitantly. 'Em, yeah, that'd be nice. Can Susan come too, though? She's in a bit of a mood because of all the time I've been spending with Paddy. I promised her a girly day. I was in here to buy some wine and snacks and stuff.'

Carina shrugged, doing as I was, trying to look as if it was no big deal. 'Yeah, like I said – the more the merrier. Me and Vivienne'll get some wine as well, will we? Did I just hear you right? Did you say all of the time _you've_ been spending with Paddy?'

Jennifer smirked, and then tried to look guilty. It didn't work, so she went back to smirking. 'Yeah, well... you know how these things are. Sure, they'd broke up a whole three weeks before I started up with him, so I don't know why she's in a mood about it. C'mere till I tell ye how it happened –'

She looped her arms into mine and Carina's, and we finished our shopping, catching up on everything that had happened since we had last been home.

And that was that. For the first time in our lives we invited friends to the house. We drank cheap wine, ate ready-made salad and badly cooked steak, and I tried to lose my nervousness.

A thing that used to worry me when I was little, when I used to imagine what it might be like if I was allowed to invite one of the other girls over to play, was: what if the phone rang?

On television I had seen girls my age answering the phone, having easy conversations with other girls, acting like it was no big deal to do these things. The girls from school would probably be just the same, I thought. They would go where they wanted in their homes. They would make and receive telephone calls, seated on an armchair, or a hall table, or the bottom step of the staircase, twirling the cord around their hands while they talked and laughed.

Their parents might complain that they were running up the bill, but the girls would say, 'Yeah, yeah, I'll be off in a minute,' with no trace of worry or fear in their voices.

It wasn't even so much that I _couldn't_ answer the phone, or go into locked rooms. I didn't think about the reasons. As a child all that I cared about was that the other kids would know – all it would take was a day in our house and they'd know for sure that we were as weird as they thought.

I think that, on that day, even though we were relaxing and drinking, I still would have panicked had the phone rang. I still would have hesitated, and acted oddly, no matter how drunk I became. But no one seemed to notice that I felt uncomfortable, and after we had quite a few glasses of wine, Susan began to talk about primary school. At first she was just recalling the teachers we had, funny things that had happened on sports days, but when she started to talk about how hilarious she thought it had been when fat Martin fell and broke a hurdle during a race, Jennifer fixed her with a stare.

'It wasn't funny,' she said. 'He really hurt himself, and all we did was laugh.'

'Well,' said Carina, 'sensitivity wasn't exactly you guys' thing back then, was it? Sure, ye gave the two of us a hard enough time for years, never mind the way ye crucified poor Martin.'

'I know,' said Jennifer seriously, still fixing Susan with her stare. 'It wasn't on, wasn't it not, Susan.'

Susan hadn't yet stopped laughing at the memory of Martin, so Jennifer spoke again.

'Ah sure. We were just – do you know what it was, though? We all thought you were these perfect little rich girls. We thought ye wouldn't want us calling round here to your big fancy house. We thought yis'd reckon ye were too good for us. I can't even remember why we thought that, because I don't think ye really did anything to make us think it. We just... we just did. I'm sorry if I was ever a cow.'

Susan smacked her on the arm. 'You are _such_ a big dope, Jennifer. It doesn't matter how stupid we were when we were kids. We were kids. You can't blame kids, can you?' She looked at me and Carina.

Carina shook her head after a few seconds, and said, 'Nah. You can't, can you? You were both big cows, and we were both snobby bitches. And now we're friends. Happy ever after.'

She was drunk and giggling, and soon we were all giggling. It didn't quite break the ice as far as my discomfort was concerned, but I acted as easy as I could, even when the air cooled and we all went inside. And when more time passed, and it was clear that Jennifer and Susan would never make it home, I was the one who suggested they sleep in the boys' room.

I woke at least a dozen times that night. The first few times I lay there, listening. After waking for the fifth time, though, I left the room and walked the house from top to bottom, so that I could be sure no one was wandering. I don't know what I thought I was guarding, because by then there was nothing left for them to see.

### Oisín

They talked about Oisín for days before we met him. Jennifer spoke about him more than anybody else did, although she swore she wasn't interested in him, seeing as she was with Paddy. He dominated so many of our conversations that we felt like we already knew him.

He was a science nerd, Susan said, but he wasn't a nerdy nerd.

He was too good-looking to be a nerdy nerd, Jennifer said, even if he was obsessed with astronomy.

He lived in one of the houses that had been built a year earlier, close to the primary school. He moved from Dublin with his family at the beginning of sixth year. He had spent Easter in Dublin with his old school friends, which was why we hadn't met him then.

Everyone liked him, according to Susan.

You couldn't _not_ like him, according to Jennifer, because everyone with an X chromosome thought he was beautiful; probably a few with Y chromosomes felt the same. He spent a lot of time back in Dublin, though, so it wasn't until about three weeks into the summer that we actually met him.

We were at the Long House, but from the beginning the evening felt unusual. Carina was barely drinking, sipping away at a half-pint of lager, perched on the edge of her chair.

Sometimes I question my memories. I wonder if, because of everything that followed, my mind is filling in the gaps with exaggerations or with wishful thinking. But I really do believe that the way I recall that night is the way it was.

When I think about it now, I compare it to a nature documentary. There are animals just going about their business, when suddenly they sense something is about to happen. The cameraman can see the danger – or the pleasure – that the animal is about to encounter, but the animals depend entirely on sense. They just _know_ that there's a baddie coming their way, or they know when there's a potential new mate in the neighbourhood. Carina was that way, all evening, although none of us knew that he was coming.

We were sitting at a table in the corner, about six girls squashed around on too few chairs. All of the lads were sitting up on taller barstools around the bar itself. It wasn't very long into the evening and mating rituals weren't yet in full swing. Carina didn't join in the conversation all that much but, when she did, everybody hung on her word. She had so much energy around her that at one stage I thought – if I touched her arm, would I recoil from the shock?

And then he arrived. He walked towards our male friends, and most of the girls sat with their mouths hanging open, staring at him. Carina had her back to him at the time, and she didn't turn around. But she bristled. I was sitting closer to her than anyone, and I watched the fine golden hairs on her forearm stand up straight. She stood up, said she was going to get a drink, and walked to the bar.

I remember it in slow motion. I remember it like a scene in a film I've seen a thousand times. Jennifer was walking with her, but she may as well not have been there. I was drawn to two people only, and I know that a lot of people in the bar were just as taken.

And all they did, Oisín and Carina, was look at each other. Just the quickest of glances. But as soon as they looked away – Carina to say something to Jennifer, Oisín to listen to something Colm was saying – it was as if the world had changed. For the first time in years Carina looked self-conscious. I watched her eyelids blink rapidly as she tried to pay attention to Jennifer. I watched Oisín brush back his hair and take a drink of his pint as soon as it was placed in front of him.

When Carina got to the bar, she tried so hard not to look his way that I could see the strain on her face. Jennifer started to speak.

'Oh hey, Oisín,' she said, as if she had only just noticed him, as if he hadn't been her whole reason for following Carina to the bar. 'Didn't see you come in. You've not met Carina yet, have you? She's one of our local posh totty pair. That's her cousin Viv across the way,' she went on, nodding her head to Carina and towards me as well.

Oisín gave both me and Carina little waves to say hello. I waved back, smiling. Jennifer and Susan were right. You couldn't not like him. He was not particularly tall – maybe only an inch or two taller than Carina – and he was verging on skinny, but there was something about him that made him seem handsome. He had dark brown hair falling into his eyes, and he wore the shyest smile on his face.

Carina barely lifted her hand to wave back. She was too busy clutching onto her purse. She nodded her head with a funny little smile and called her order to the barmaid, while Jennifer continued to prattle.

I imagined what it must look like inside their chests. Did people's hearts actually thump faster when they fell in love? Did they really lose their breath? I saw Carina then, her eyes still blinking, taking a deep breath as her left hand fluttered to her chest. I noticed Oisín try to keep his hand from trembling. As he put his pint back down onto the bar, a little bit of it spilled.

They didn't talk that evening. Not properly, anyhow. After a few pints the boys came over to where we were sitting, pushing tables and chairs together so there was enough room for us all. Jennifer sat beside Oisín, chatting to him all evening. There were other lads who tried to chat Carina up, but as for Oisín, he settled for the odd sneaked glance.

I waited for something to happen between Carina and Oisín. It always seemed _about_ to happen. Days went by when all they would do was look at each other. Sometimes they smiled. There was one occasion, at a club in Virginia, when a slow song started playing and Oisín looked like he was about to cross the room to ask Carina to dance. But a stocky guy came over and started talking to her, and Oisín changed direction and went to the bar instead. She didn't dance with the stocky guy, but maybe Oisín thought that she liked him, because he went home alone shortly after.

Carina grew less confident as time passed. I had never seen her that way before – so shy, so nervous. And Oisín appeared to be just as bad. There were so many times when I tried to get them sitting at the same table, and to initiate conversations that would get them talking, but every time it seemed like they might get over their nerves there was someone to interrupt. It was exhausting, and I felt like I wanted this just as much as she did, yet all I could do was watch while they missed chance after chance.

There was one night, though, when I wasn't watching them at all.
Colm

Susan's parents went away for a week, leaving her alone in the house. On the first night they were away – a Friday – she decided to have a party.

The cottage was a small two-bedroom terrace, but somehow dozens of people managed to fit inside.

It was hot and crowded, and by the time midnight came I didn't think I could bear to stay much longer. I had only stayed so long in the hopes that Oisín would arrive but so far I hadn't seen him, so my plan was to go to the loo, then find Carina and head home. It was when I was going up the stairs that I saw Colm. I hesitated. I hadn't spoken to him since Easter. I wondered if he would just walk past, ignore me the way he had been doing so far, but instead he put his hand out to bar my way.

He said, 'Bad luck to pass on the staircase.'

'So what do we do then?' I asked.

He bit his lip. Maybe he had surprised himself as much as he had surprised me by speaking, I don't know. I just remember feeling relieved when he spoke again.

'I'll walk up with you,' he suggested with a soft smile. 'Then we can walk back down together.'

'But I have to pee when I get to the top.'

He laughed then, so I laughed too and went on with, 'What did you think I was going upstairs for? To admire the view from the gallery?'

'I'll wait for you,' he said. He looked serious for a second, all the mirth leaving his eyes. 'It's the only way to undo the bad luck, Viv.'

It was a strange moment. It didn't seem like a joke. It didn't feel funny at all.

I said, 'If that's what you think we should do, then that's what we should do,' and he nodded as if we were about to do something momentous.

Even so, when I left the bathroom I was surprised to find him waiting. More people seemed to have arrived in the short time we were upstairs. The front door was wide open, but jammed with people so that you couldn't even see outside. The crowd ran all the way through the hallway. There didn't seem to be any way through to the door, or to any of the other rooms, without barging or pushing. We didn't say anything about it, but as soon as a step close to the bottom cleared, we both sat there, conserving our energy for the next dash, watching the crowd so that we could make a run for it as soon as there was any way through.

We didn't talk straight away. Maybe a minute or two passed before we struck up a conversation. I know that it began with us talking about superstitions, thinking up the most ridiculous ones we could, but after that I don't know what kept us speaking for so long.

The hallway had long cleared and the whole house had quietened down while we were on that step. There were opportunities for us to leave, to go over to friends who called us, but we just stayed there talking.

We didn't mention Easter, or Carina. At one point we even managed to have a conversation about a rabbit I had seen that morning, and then about a badger Colm passed every single evening on his way home.

I don't know how long we were there when Paddy swayed towards the staircase. He seemed like he was going to step right on top of me, like he didn't notice me at all. Maybe in his drunkenness he thought I was part of the pattern on the staircase carpet. I was frightened and I couldn't move, but then Colm reached out and pulled me out of the way. Paddy passed, still noticing nothing, and I took a deep breath.

'Gobshite!' Colm shouted, but Paddy didn't notice that either. Colm turned to look at me. 'Are you all right?'

I nodded. 'Thanks.'

He smiled at me, and his arm stayed around my shoulder, and I didn't want it to move. It was his smell, I think. There was something so comforting about his smell. Like warm biscuits. I realised that in all of the years I had known him, I had never sat so close to him. I wondered if he always smelled that way, if there was always such a warm feeling surrounding him. The air that came out of his lungs was drugs, I decided – warm, biscuitty drugs, and all I wanted was to breathe him in.

I felt like I could just rest there, lay my head on his shoulder, and fall asleep. He made a little sound next to me, sort of like a happy sigh, and his arm tightened. I did let my head fall then, against his upper arm, and I closed my eyes. I felt his fingers on my forehead a second later, really gently, pushing my fringe out of my eyes. I looked at him, and he was looking at my whole face, piece by piece, his eyes moving slowly. I don't know if he kissed me or I kissed him. Maybe it really was the two of us, at the exact same time. And it felt warm, and lovely. It felt as good as he smelled.

≈

Over the course of the next two weeks we kept getting together. For the first couple of days we did nothing but kiss and fool around, and each morning I'd wake and wonder what the hell I was doing. When I was on my own I would question if I was just a replacement model. I was a little shorter than Carina, and my hair had grown slightly darker than hers over the years, but the similarities were more noticeable than the differences.

At the beginning of every night out I would give myself a talking-to: no kissing Colm; no fooling around with Colm. But then I'd see him. And he would smile. My knees would buckle a little bit and I'd find myself grinning back, knowing that no matter what my insecurities were, at the end of the night I would be with him.

I wasn't even sure what I saw in him, to begin with, other than how he made me feel. I put it down to drink – if I was sober, I told myself, he wouldn't smell like biscuits. He wouldn't make my belly smile. I wouldn't find myself in an alley with him, close to the night club we'd just left, with my body tight against a brick wall while he kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me.

And touched me. There was something about the way he touched me.

But it was the drink, I was convinced. It _had_ to be the drink. I was just so drunk that I _thought_ he was touching me how I wanted to be touched. I was just so drunk that I imagined every touch was bliss.

I wish I could remember more than just snatches of those first few times with him. The feeling is what comes back to me, these days. I'll be doing something normal, like buttering toast, or changing the bedclothes here in my flat, and it will just hit me: the sudden jolt of feeling when his fingers slid into me for the first time. So sharp and sweet. The giddy laughter we tried to suppress, downstairs on his sofa as we struggled to open a condom packet, while in the rooms above us Davey and his mother snored.

But the memory of feeling goes almost as soon as it arrives. And it did then, too. Those first times the memories would only be flashes the morning after. Even during, sometimes, I would struggle to remember how I had come to be against that wall with him, or on that sofa, or in that bedroom, or on that bale of hay. I would grow sober and think: but this is Colm Barry.

I think the thing that changed it all, for me, was the morning I woke in his bedroom. His mother was at work, his dad was out somewhere, and I had gone back to the farm after a night out.

Like every other time we'd slept together, I had only vague recollections of the night before. For a second when I woke I didn't know where I was, and I looked around me, trying to figure it out. I looked at the posters on the walls, and they were all such typical man posters: half-naked women, cars, motorbikes. There were some music posters, but none were of bands I liked. I looked down at him, wondering what was going on, what did we even see in each other?

And then he woke, blinked, rubbed his eyes, and smiled.

'Viv,' he said in a thick, happy voice, reaching out to pull me down.

'I've got morning breath!' I cried as he tried to kiss me.

He laughed softly. 'Don't care about that,' he said. 'You smell nice. You smell like pale pink or something. Angel Delight.'

'You're still drunk,' I said, and I think I was about to give in and kiss him when the door burst open.

'Jesus!' cried Colm, pulling the cover over me so that nothing could be seen. 'Get the fuck out, Davey!'

I heard the door shut and Davey muttering, 'Shit. Sorry.'

I should have felt embarrassed, but I was just looking at Colm. He was above me, then, because of how he had moved to cover us with the duvet. The sun was penetrating through the white quilt, and I looked at it, surrounding his body, bathing him in light.

He kissed me then, and I forgot all about morning breath. I had this feeling, a dart of such strong feeling, beginning at my lips and running down through my whole body. It was filling me, swimming around and through me, pushing at the edges, making my skin tingle. As I kissed him back, I felt like I wanted every single millimetre of him and I don't think, until that moment, I had ever felt anything that came close; or if I had, had I been too drunk to know? I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to touch him. Everything about him was the most perfect, most enticing thing in the world.

Before that morning I used to think that I could never have sex if I was sober. I used to think it would be impossible to relax. But lying in his bed I couldn't believe how wet I was. I couldn't believe how alive I was. We went down on each other for the first time that morning, and I couldn't stop myself crying out, even though I knew Davey was in the house. The heat that built while his tongue moved was so new, so alien. A tiny part of me was almost embarrassed because of how I was reacting, because of how much I liked it, but I didn't want it to stop. By the time I came I had forgotten all about embarrassment. And when, straight afterwards, he entered me, and the feeling built all over again, all I cared about was it, was us.

We were caught that morning in something, and breaking free was unthinkable. If it had been forever, it would have been the most perfect forever. And yet when it ended, whatever it was, I felt only happiness. After a while of simply holding me, he propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at me with his eyes wide.

'Stop staring at me,' I said, half-giggling, wondering if I looked as flushed as I felt.

'I can't help it. You're gorgeous. Why the hell did it take us so long to do this?'

I pulled out the pillow and pressed it over my head. 'Stop talking rubbish. Make me a cup of tea.'

Colm laughed. But then he pulled the pillow away from me, looking serious, and he said, 'Do you feel weird that I was with Carina first?'

I shook my head. I don't know if he could see that, because I'd managed to get the pillow back so that it was once again covering me, but he went on, anyway.

'It was never... It wasn't like this, Viv. It was never like this. Just now, when we were together, it was like – you were just as into it as I was. Carina – sometimes it felt like she wasn't even there.'

I whacked him with the pillow. 'Tea.'

'All right, all right. I'll get you your tea,' he said, laughing as he got out of bed.

≈

When I got home that morning I found Carina at the lake, about to take the boat out.

'Can I come with you?' I asked.

She shrugged. 'Why not? Been a while since we've been out together.'

I climbed in and she took the oars.

'You can have a turn in a minute,' she said.

For about ten minutes we went around, until finally I said, 'So, you know I've been with Colm a couple of times and stuff. You know I went back to his last night?'

To my surprise, she fixed me with a wicked smile. 'Of course I know. And I can tell by the shine in your eyes and the flush on your face that a nice time was had by all. I'm happy for you. Really. For both of you.'

'But are you though? I mean, is it all right with you? Because it might be, y'know... I might like him, I think. But I could just as easy end it, if it's weird for you.'

She stood up and switched places with me.

'You idiot. Weird for me? What was weird was being with him when all he did was gawp at you, Vivvy. That's what was weird. This is how it should be, so make the most of it.'

I began to row, but I didn't take us back to the bank. I just settled into the rhythm, confused in my thoughts.

'Gawp at me?' I said after a while. 'He was mad about you.'

She shook her head. 'Maybe for a little while. But it's been you for years now, no matter how many times I tried to get him to pay attention to me, no matter how oblivious you were to the way he looked at you. And sure why not? You're a babe, Vivvy.'

I probably reddened, and as I rowed back to the bank I changed the subject to the dress Susan had been wearing the night before.
Eta Carinae

The following Friday we all went to Jennifer's house to watch a film called Event Horizon. Colm and I had already seen it, so we weren't really that interested. He wanted to stay in, because his house was going to be empty that night. I wanted to stay in, too. Ever since the morning in his bedroom, all I wanted to do was stay in with him, but I convinced him to go so that I could be there with Carina. She still hadn't managed to speak to Oisín. I felt guilty for getting so wrapped up in Colm when what I ought to have been doing was giving her my help. If she got together with Oisín then I could go on and spend as much time as I wanted with Colm, knowing that she was happy. There was something about the way they looked at each other that made me sure: they would be happy.

Jennifer had broken up with Paddy, and it was clear that she was hoping to start something up with Oisín. She sat next to him for the film, but he didn't pay her much attention.

Carina had been given the smallest chair, a dining chair at the opposite end of the room to Oisín. If Jennifer's plan was to keep them away from each other it backfired. Jennifer was incredibly attractive, with her curves and her kohl-lined eyes, but she was nothing compared to Carina. The way that Oisín and Carina were seated meant they were directly across from each other, and they spent the entire film shooting little shy smiles back and forth.

The film disturbed everybody, and afterwards all they wanted to do was talk about it and ask Oisín questions. They wanted to know about black holes, about event horizons, and were asking if he was going to go and explore things like that once he was (in Susan's words) 'a qualified spaceman.' They were asking jokily, not teasing him in a mean way or anything like that, but I could see that Oisín wasn't enjoying the attention.

After a few minutes of it he said he had to go, and I was hoping that Carina would stand up and follow him but she just sat on her chair biting her lips and looking like she was about to cry.

'Bit tired, so I am,' Colm said, standing up with a stretch and a yawn. 'Come on, Viv, Carrie – we'll all walk home together.'

I don't know who loved Colm more at the moment – Carina or I – but we both followed him out, grinning. When we got outside Oisín was halfway along the row of cottages on his way home.

'Oisín,' called Carina. She swallowed nervously as soon as she had his name out. I don't think she had planned to call out the way she had, because she seemed stunned.

He turned around straight away. He had an expression of expectation on his face, but Carina said nothing more. They stood there looking at each other, both seeming terrified, and I don't know how much longer it would have gone on if Colm hadn't said, 'Carina was wondering if you wanted to come back with us. Have a drink and that.'

Oisín smiled, biting his lip, falling into step beside Carina while we walked towards our house. Colm and I walked as far ahead as we could, but we could hear every word of their conversation.

'Are you really going to be an astronomer?'

'I want to do astrophysics if I get the points. Bet you think it's sappy.'

'No way. I wish... I don't think I'll end up doing anything I really want to do. I'm pretty sure I messed up the exams.'

They talked on like that, about the Leaving Certificate and college plans for the next ten minutes or so. Colm and I kept looking at each other, rolling our eyes, but we were smiling, really. Colm seemed as happy as I was to finally hear them talk. I suppose we both felt as if we were instrumental to them – finally – getting to this point.

'So, tell me something about the stars,' said Carina.

'I could tell you about you,' Oisín replied. 'You're a whole constellation.'

'What? Give over.'

'Your name. It's the name of a constellation. You seriously don't know that?'

'I thought it was Latin for some part of a ship. The keel, whatever that is. That's what – that's what I was always told, whenever we were out on the boat.'

'It does mean that. It used to be part of a bigger constellation. Argo Navis, the ship of the Argonauts, and Carina was the keel. Only Argo was officially split in like... oh, the 18th century I think, into a bunch of smaller constellations: the sails, the keel and so on. So now, Carina, you're a whole constellation of your own. You've got Canopus – that's the second biggest star in the sky, after Sirius. Even more awesome when you figure that Canopus is a _lot_ further away than Sirius. And you've got Eta Carinae. That's – well, that's amazing.'

'Why? Is it a star?'

Her voice was breathless when she spoke, and I found myself waiting, as she was, for his words.

'Yeah. A star. Tseen She, that's my favourite name for you, actually. Chinese. Heaven's Altar, it means. But Eta Car's not just a star. It's a nebula, too.'

I listened, fascinated, as he explained. The nebula, a large cloud of hydrogen gas, holds within it both the star Eta Carinae and the Homunculus Nebula which obscures the star from view.

'Homunculus?' she asked (though I probably would have asked if she hadn't). 'What, like a dwarf?'

'Yeah, actually, Miss Brainy. It's shaped like a small person, hence the name. It was because of the massive eruption in the 1840s. The star flared up. I would've loved to have seen it. It's the biggest any star's known to have survived. For a while it was the second brightest star in the sky. But it faded, calmed down, and the gas it threw off, that's the nebula, the homunculus, that obscures it now. It's not so easy to study Eta Car. They don't know what's going on with it. It could go supernova. Or it could even be a binary. That's two stars that interact.'

'But what does supernova mean?' she asked, her voice a soft, enraptured exhalation.

'It's... it's when a massive star dies. Its core collapses, and for a few weeks afterwards it shines as bright as if it was an entire galaxy. It's beautiful. But the most amazing thing about it isn't even how bright it shines. It's that death isn't ever really death. It'll go on to be something else, depending on how big or small it is. The big ones, they'll be black holes, with a pull so strong that even the star's own light won't escape.'

They went quiet for a while. I resisted the urge to glance back at them, but I don't think they would have noticed if I had. I was sure that they were looking at each other. I was sure that I could actually _hear_ them grinning like love-sick puppies.

≈

Colm never spent the night in our house. He would walk me home and leave me by the gate. There was one night, about a week into our relationship, when he came back for a drink. He looked so uncomfortable the whole time he was there, and he left with his beer still half-full.

It was something that we never discussed. We had managed, somehow, to spend weeks together without ever once bringing up our Easter conversation. There were times when it didn't seem far from his mind. Sometimes when he had a few drinks he'd say something like, 'We should talk properly, Viv,' or, 'You know you can tell me anything, Viv.' It was easy to change the subject, though, when he was drunk. When I think about it now, I wonder if it was as much of a relief to him as it was to me, to pretend that there _was_ nothing to talk about.

That night as we walked up the driveway I felt him tense beside me, and I began to worry. The night had to be perfect. Carina deserved things to go well with Oisín. Before we even entered the house I was annoyed with Colm.

Oisín and Carina seemed nervous again as soon as we walked into the kitchen. Carina sat down next to me, across from Oisín. She said nothing and seemed to be sitting straight and still, but when I looked down at her feet I could see her toes wiggling in her sandals.

'Why don't we play cards?' I suggested, and both of them smiled as though I was manna.

Carina had never been a big fan of card games. Even when we were younger I had to convince her to play, and she would only enjoy Snap, Top Trumps, or Uno at a pinch. She never tried very hard to win. We played poker that night, although I didn't hold out much hope for a good game. Michelle and Margaret had loved to play at school, and so Carina knew the game, and was even good when she bothered. But she wasn't trying that night; all she was interested in was Oisín, and she only seemed to come to life whenever he looked her way.

Colm kept getting up from the table every few minutes, saying he needed a drink or he needed air. The third time he left the table I followed him outside.

He was standing by the lake, looking over at the bungalow.

'I was thinking about throwing a pizza in the oven, if you're hungry.'

He ignored me and kept staring across the water.

'Is it because of the poker?' I went on. 'We can do something else if you want.'

He let out a sarcastic snort. 'Give over, Viv. We're playing for matchsticks. Hardly likely to set me on the road to ruin, is it?'

'Why did you even come here?' I asked, trying my best to keep my voice down. I couldn't believe what I was saying, and I didn't know where it would stop. 'If you hate this place so much then why don't you just bloody well go home?'

He turned and looked at me, and he almost shouted his reply. 'I do hate this place. It gives me the willies. You all do. You always have. I wish to Christ I didn't –'

He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists and looked at the ground.

'Didn't what?'

He shook his head wildly, with his shoulders lowered. 'Feck it,' he said after a few seconds delay. 'I'm away home.'

He just started walking, then. Clouds had covered the moon, and it was really dark, but he didn't slow down, just kept going, leaving me standing there staring at his back. I wished that my eyes could force him to turn around. I thought: how can he not feel how much I want him to come back?

I stayed outside for a few minutes, contemplating following him. I would have, probably, if I wasn't so terrified about what I'd say, about what he would ask.

When I went back inside Oisín was standing awkwardly at the kitchen door, while Carina opened and shut drawers and cupboards.

'Looking for a torch,' she explained.

I shrugged, left them to it, and went to bed.

≈

An hour later I was wide awake, but I kept my eyes closed while Carina undressed and got into bed.

'I know you're not asleep,' she said.

'How can you tell?'

'Just can. What's wrong with Colm?'

I tried to make my voice sound normal. I'd been crying, but I didn't want her to know. 'He just doesn't like this house,' I admitted. 'Says it gives him the creeps.'

'Can't say I blame him. Will I tell you what happened with Oisín?'

I turned and looked at her, and even in the dark I could see she was happy. 'Yeah,' I said. 'Go on.'

≈

They stood outside the gate, varying between letting out shy giggles and talking about astronomy. The clouds no longer hid just the moon, but had taken over most of the sky; barely a star was visible.

'But we can talk about them,' Oisín said. 'Maybe they'll get brighter, then. Do you want to know more about your constellation?'

She shook her head. 'You'll think I'm self-obsessed if I say yes.'

'I can think of worse things to be obsessed with.'

They both reddened when he said that, and it was Oisín who broke the awkwardness, saying, 'Well, what else would you like to know about?'

'Em, well, I know all these names of things, like Orion or the Seven Sisters, but I've no idea about the stories behind them. I mean – the Seven Sisters? Is it just because it's seven stars or...?'

'The Seven Sisters has a couple of stories behind it,' he said. 'Well three, that I can think of. Pleiades, that's the proper name. Do you actually want to know about this? No one wants to know about this usually. All those Greek myths are a bit...'

'I want to hear the stories. I do. I always wanted to know about the Seven Sisters. Pleiades, whatever.'

'Well, all right. Will you think I'm a nerd if I actually remember all the names and stuff? I can pretend not to, if that'll make me seem cooler.'

Carina laughed. 'I _wish_ I could remember everything I read or hear. And nerds are in, y'know. I think you could even get away with a pair of glasses, these days.'

'Good to know. Right. So, Pleione was the mammy of the Seven Sisters. Atlas was the da, and Oceanus was the granddaddy. The girls were... Electra, Maia, Taygete, Alcyone, Celano, Sterope and Merope...

'One version goes: Daddy dies, girls are heartbroken and they top themselves. Another goes: their sisters, called the Hyades, die, and so they top themselves. In both stories they get turned into stars afterwards. _But_ the most Greek of all the stories has the sisters working for Artemis, who's the goddess of wildlife, hunting, nature... whatever, she was a bloody paragon if she managed half the things she did. Anyway, Orion, he was a hunter who took a fancy to the girls, and he wouldn't leave them alone, until the gods decided to rescue them and turn them into doves. Then they got turned into stars afterwards, but Orion still won't leave them alone. He chases them, night after night across the sky.'

'You were right about those Greek myths being a bit...'

'I did warn you. There's worse about Orion. Bit of a twat, from what I read. Carina, will... will we meet up again, do you think?'

She nodded. 'If you like. As long as you know I'm going to use you as my walking talking encyclopaedia from here on in.'

'I think I can live with that.'

He seemed like a giant. He was only an inch or two above her, but she said he seemed so tall then, while they stood on the spot, looking at the ground, looking at the cloudy sky, looking at anything but each other.

'I suppose I better get off home then. Seeing as I've got the torch. No excuse to hang around, really, do I? Unless there's any other info you need from your encyclopaedia just now?'

She shrugged. He must have decided that it was a dismissive shrug, because he began to walk away. She reached out a shaking hand to stop him. He turned instantly, and she wondered, but was afraid to ask: did he have the same feeling, strong and new, when their skin touched? For a moment they stood, with her hand on his arm, until he took her hand in his and looked at her.

And then they were kissing. It could have gone on for a minute, Carina told me as we lay in bed, or an hour. She had no idea how long they stood by the gate. It probably would have gone on forever if Mr Barry hadn't driven by on his way home, so that they had to stop and move aside to avoid being knocked over. But she did know something for sure: when they pulled apart, the sky was a little brighter.

'I'll phone you in the morning,' Oisín said, walking backwards, switching on the torch. She stood and watched him walk away, feeling like she was soaring, feeling like she was high up above it all, in the constellation Carina.

≈

I didn't sleep that whole night. As soon as it was light I got dressed and ran to the Barry farm. I don't know what I intended to do, seeing as I had no key and Colm had no mobile for me to call. But I had a shaky, desperate feeling through my whole body, and my mind raced and raced, thinking only odd thoughts: Colm couldn't finish with me, because then I would have nothing but time to think. Colm couldn't hate me because then I would hate myself.

When I arrived I walked around to the back of the house and saw him in the closest field. He had a post hammer and was slamming a new fence post into the ground, in place of one that was old, rotten and splintered. The new post was already deeply in, but he kept hammering and hammering until it was further into the soil than any of the others.

'Hi,' I said quietly.

I don't know if he heard me approaching, but he didn't look surprised to see me when he turned around. His eyes were really intense, searching every inch of my face as he asked, 'Would you tell me? If there was anything...? Would you tell me, Viv?'

I moved closer, swallowing, nodding my head. 'Yeah,' I said. 'Of course I would.'

'Really?'

I kept nodding, but then I was crying too, out of nowhere, and I knew he didn't believe me, but his face softened and he put his arms out, and I rushed into his chest.

I don't know how long we stood there before we went inside. I just remember how my eyes kept blinking, open and closed, open and closed. All along the barbed wire I saw dog roses growing, blurry through my tears. Colm smelled like last night's beer, but I inhaled him deeply, because through it I could still smell what I needed. My crying calmed, the way that everything seemed to calm when I was close to him, and all I could think was that he was the nicest thing I'd ever known.
Nothing Feckin' Lasts

Colm took a job soon after the summer holidays began, at a hotel in Virginia. The hotel housed a popular bar and a nightclub. He had no specific job title; he just did a little bit of everything. The owner was a distant cousin of his, called Gareth, and they seemed to get along well.

Colm's many duties there included going to the cash and carry, and driving drunken customers home at closing time. In order to do these things he had been given the use of an old van. I don't think I ever paid any attention to what model it was. It was red, and it had the name and telephone number of the hotel emblazoned on each side. He was allowed to take the van home, and to use it for whatever he wanted. Of course, because there were often drunks in the back, it did need to be cleaned more often than most cars or vans. Colm washed and waxed it every day, cleaning the soiled seats and the sticky floor and vacuuming out specks of dirt that nobody other than him could see.

I didn't mind how crazy he was about the van. I was crazy about it too, or at least about the freedom it gave us. He drove me everywhere – if a place was only a five minute walk away he'd say, 'Oh, but I reckon it might rain. Better give you a lift.' I helped him clean it out and wash it; and I helped him make a mess of it, too.

After the night we played poker we didn't attempt another evening at our house. We spent our time at his place without discussion. There was never even, 'Oh, so do you want me to drop you home, or are you coming to mine?' from Colm. There was never, 'So, will you call in to me after work or will I just meet you at the farm?' from me.

His home life wasn't perfect. No one's is, probably. The first real argument I heard was after a night out at the Long House. We had walked there and back because Colm knew he would be drinking. He talked about the van the whole way back, saying, 'Oh, wouldn't it be lovely to be able to turn on the heater?'

'It's hot tonight. Why would we need a heater?'

'Yeah, well... if I'd not had a drink we could drive off somewhere and be a bit noisier than we'll be able to be in my house.'

His voice trailed off towards the end of that sentence. We were passing my gate as he said it, and I think he was afraid I would say, 'So why don't we just go to mine?'

I didn't, though. I just walked right past the gate like it didn't exist, and in a few seconds he was smiling again and tightening his hold on my hand.

'I suppose madam would like a cup of tea before we go to bed?' he said as we neared the Barry farm.

'Madam would _love_ a cup of tea. And a biscuit, if there's any around.'

'Chocolate Bourbon or Custard Cream?'

'Ummm... Custard Cream,' I said, standing back while he put his key in the lock.

The door was barely ajar when we heard the shouting. Automatically, I focused my gaze on the ground. I recall thinking that, in Colm's position, I couldn't have coped with eye contact.

'Will I go home?' I said.

He looked puzzled. 'Why would you go home? It's only my parents arguing about money. My folks are _always_ arguing about money.'

We stepped into the house. 'Well, maybe I'll just wait up in your room, then.'

With a smile, he pulled gently on my hand, and walked towards the kitchen. 'Would you _stop?_ ' he said. 'You want tea and a Custard Cream, and that's what you'll have.'

I was biting my lip, embarrassed as we went into the room. Colm's mother went quiet but Mr Barry kept shouting.

'Oh, look, here's the golden boy now,' he said. 'Perfect timing, lad, you should be in on this, an' all.'

Colm shrugged. 'Anyone want a cuppa?' He looked at his father. 'Looks like you could do with one.'

'May thinks you can run this place better, just the two o' ye. Thinks I should do ye both a favour and let ye play happy farmers together, without me.'

'Would you be quiet, Vincent,' May hissed. 'It's bad enough we have to put up with your loud mouth without poor Viv having to hear it an' all.'

'Oh, I don't know about that. Miss Moneybags is more than used to hearing arguments, I'd say. What do you think, Colm – you think like your mammy does – that you'd be better off without me?'

The kettle came to a boil, and Colm busied himself making tea and getting biscuits.

'Well?' Mr Barry pressed. 'You know what you have to do if you want it, don't you?'

Colm rolled his eyes, handed me my tea and said, 'Night, Mam,' as we walked up to his bedroom.

≈

That was only the first of many arguments I heard at the Barry house. I lost some of my discomfort after a while and learned to differentiate between the bad nights and the horrible nights. Mr Barry seemed increasingly frustrated with Colm. He often spoke about how much money Colm was earning and said things like, 'Sure haven't I been putting a roof over your head for years, so a bit of payback wouldn't go amiss.'

I was confused, because I knew that Colm gave his mother money towards food and bills every week. It was a while before I learned what Mr Barry meant.

It seemed that he drank even more than he gambled in those days, and we'd know when he'd enjoyed an expensive session because we would hear his car, stalling and starting, stalling and starting, all the way up the drive as he contended with the gears. Next, we would hear him struggling to get his key in the door. More often than not he would give up after a few minutes, and head for an old caravan that sat in the yard, banging the door closed behind him. He would always deny that he had a lot to drink, saying he only stayed in the caravan because he preferred his own company.

One night we didn't know he was in the caravan. He must have walked home, leaving his car in town for a change. It was a cool night, and May and Davey went outside to get some firewood from the shed next to the caravan. It was when we heard the shouting that Colm and I went to see what was happening.

Mr Barry was standing at the door of the caravan with a whiskey bottle in his hand, shouting, 'Ye can't even give me a moment's peace, but ye'r out here bangin' around. Either I've a cold unwelcome bed to go to, or I've this shit heap to try and kip in. And now I can't even have any peace in here.' He rounded on Colm as we emerged from the house. 'And _you_!' he spat. 'Feckin' tight little... feckin' fecker...' He swayed, used the door to steady himself, and went back inside the caravan.

Colm went and took the pile of wood from his mother's arms. I remember noticing how gently he did it, how sweet he was to her, bringing her inside and making her a cup of tea, and sitting her down in front of the television with her footbath. He didn't say anything. None of us did. Davey went to his bedroom, and Colm and I sat watching some bad romantic comedy with his mother.

When I woke the next morning I was alone. I dressed, wanting to be gone before Mr Barry woke, and went out into the morning. It was barely seven, but the sun was strong. I saw Colm then, standing at the edge of the rapeseed, and went to join him.

'Aren't you tired?' I asked.

He put a finger over his lips. 'Listen,' he whispered.

And then I heard the humming. I had never heard it so loud before, anywhere.

'This stuff drives them wild,' he said, as I looked out at the golden flower-heads thronged with bees. 'They'll fly from miles away just to get to it.'

We walked around silently while the bees, intent on the flowers, seemed not to notice we were there.

'You know, last night...' he said after a while. 'How he called me tight. My dad's asked me twice, now, to make a deal with him.'

'What sort of deal?'

'He knows I've been offered a second job, in the slaughterhouse with my mam. Well, I'll be in packaging. She's in the office.'

'Oh.' I knew I sounded a bit deflated, and I tried to change my voice to upbeat. 'Well, I mean, that's good. Maybe it'd be better hours than the hotel?'

He bit his lip. 'It'd be as well as the hotel. That's why I've not told you yet. Because I don't get to see you enough as it is, but... anyway, he thinks I should help him pay off his latest loan. He thinks I'm dumb enough to believe that he'll hand the farm over to me if I do. Mam told me not to even think about it. She's leaving him, but, sure, there'll be feck all left for her to get, when it's all over. It's thousands he wants from me.'

I gasped. 'You never said. You don't think he'd keep to his word?'

'I don't believe a word that comes from his mouth. I used to. When he first started going on about it I almost bought into it. I used to think that, underneath, he _must_ love this place as much as I do. I know better these days. It'll be gone in a couple of years. What choice do I have though? If I hand a penny over, it'll be gone on the drink or the horses. Even if we sat down and drew up a contract or something, there's nearly nothing left. Doesn't matter what way me and Mam try to think through it... the bank'll own it all, soon. Can I tell you something?'

'Anything.'

'I keep thinking... I keep wondering what I'll do. I'm saving all this money and for what? I've never wanted to be anywhere else. Every day it's different. Some days, the light makes the hills look like they're a few minutes away, but you could walk for two hours and still not get to the point you're heading for. I love the gorse, in the spring, just... this sudden flash of colour that lets you know the land is awake again. I love the smell of the first cut in the summer. I love the smell of the silage, even. I _love_ it, Viv. I don't want anything but this, and you. But this'll be gone soon. And when you get your exam results... you'll be gone too, won't you? Do you think you'll come back? Is there enough here for you to want to come back?'

'Would you want me to?'

He stopped walking, and turned me towards him. 'Every day I look at you I see something new, something I haven't noticed before. It's the same as this place. You're... you're the same as this place. I know you'll have to go off and do whatever you need to do. But I know that when you come back, I'll just... I'll just want to look at you, and see all the changes, and get to know you all over again.'

'I don't think you've ever said this much to me.'

'I don't think I've ever said this much to anybody. Do you... y'know? Do you?'

'Do you? Do you think we still would if I went away and came back? That we'd still... We're eighteen. Can we know? Can we know what we want? When you're at work, when you're not with me... I don't like it. I only feel good when I'm with you. If I say the words, though. Does it break the spell, do you reckon? Is it better not to say it?'

He swallowed. 'My chest feels full of the words. I never felt full of anything, till you.'

I was looking at him then, just looking at him, and maybe we would have said it, maybe we would have let go of the feeling and said it out loud. But there was a creak and the bang of a door, and we heard Mr Barry shout across the field to us as he stumbled out of the caravan.

'Top o' the morning to ye, lovebirds. Make the most of it. Coz it doesn't last.' He lowered his head, muttering, but the sound carried to us, just about, and I think he said, 'Nothing feckin' lasts,' as he staggered towards the drive.

We left the field after that, going into the house for breakfast. We never took up the conversation again, and a part of me was glad. I liked it so much, how it bubbled inside, how it invaded every part of me when I was near him. I was afraid to let go of the words. I was afraid, stupidly, that the feeling might leave me along with the words. I would open my mouth, and it would all escape.
Collowgulloric War

Following their kiss, Carina and Oisín spent every day together. They went to Dublin to meet his friends, and she even had Sunday lunch with his family. They talked on the phone every night before they went to sleep. They swapped books and music, and seemed amazed by everything that the other said.

I was alone more than I would have liked, because Colm was working so much, but alone seemed the better option than being with Carina and Oisín. Carina tried her best to include me if they were watching a film or sharing a meal, but even though they were both always friendly, I felt in the way.

One Friday night, when Colm had the evening off, Carina and Oisín joined us in the Long House. Colm and I hadn't actually planned to go to the pub, but when Carina said she and Oisín might go to catch up with everyone, I decided we needed to tag along.

I hadn't mentioned it to Carina, but Jennifer had been annoyed when Carina and Oisín became a couple. I expected there to be an argument, and I wanted Carina to have someone to take her side. But I needn't have worried. At first Jennifer threw a dirty look or two in Carina's direction, but less than half an hour into the evening she was looking at the new couple like a proud parent. At one stage she turned to me and said, 'I introduced them, you know.'

They tried their best all evening to talk to everybody, but it seemed like a strain. Even when Oisín went to the bar he couldn't keep his eyes off Carina. The barmaid had to ask him what he wanted three times before he realised she was speaking.

He was nervous that night because he had something to ask Carina. His parents were in Greece for a week, so he had the house to himself.

She came over to me, with shining eyes and an excited smile, to whisper what he had asked. 'He wants me to spend the night with him. So I won't be walking home with you and Colm like a big gooseberry for once. Make the most of it.'

My eyes rounded. 'You mean... you haven't... y'know?'

'Nope,' she said. 'This'll be our first time.'

≈

Sometimes I feel like I'm missing half of a story. He was so important to Carina – from the moment they met he seemed all that mattered. But I can't do him justice. I can't, say, describe his eyes in the way that she would have. She would have seen something different in them than the dark blue that I saw there. I can recall that his hair was dark brown, almost black, but she might have named a particular shade.

And the gaps in his life are ones that I can never fill in. I think, sometimes, of all the days I could have asked him more, but I let them slip away. I could have discovered his favourite film, his favourite book. I could have been told the story of his first kiss, or his first school disco. It was as if he _was_ half of her, when they were together, and the things that I don't know about him feel like things I can never know about her.

I try to make up for it by reading about astronomy, so that I can know that part, at least, of Oisín's life. Recently I came across an article about the Boorong of Australia. They were aboriginal, and they were there to witness Eta Carinae's outburst in the 1840s. It was a massive event, a great celestial event and, like many cultures do with such events, the Boorong wove it into their mythology. She had become a more significant star after her eruption. Big and bright enough for them to name her Collowgulloric War, the wife of Canopus.

There is no great Boorong clan anymore, though it's possible that some of their descendants live in Victoria. But however many may remain doesn't matter because, through their stories, the Boorong will live forever.

### Our Song

The rain arrived while we ate toast. It seemed apt to me that it should rain, seeing as I was miserable at the thought of Colm going to work. It seemed like the sort of weather that would have suited my early stories. Colm was almost happy about it as we looked out through the kitchen window at the ground turning to mud.

'Looks like I'll have to take you back in the van,' he said. 'I've a surprise for you in there, anyway.'

We finished quickly and rushed outside. He opened my door for me, and even though I said, 'Hey, Mr, what century is this?' I was smiling while I spoke. I loved it when he opened doors for me and he knew it.

'Look.' He nodded towards the stereo when he was in his seat. 'New CD player. I kept the old stereo so I can put it back if Gareth ever wants the van back off me.'

'Nice,' I said. 'Now you'll be able to listen to all the Metallica you like without your mam and me nagging for you to turn it down.'

He grinned. 'Press play.'

'You've not got it turned right up to the top of the volume knob, have you?' I asked, but pressed the button anyway. 'Oh.'

His grin spread wider. I smiled too as I listened to the voices of Shane McGowan and Sinead O'Connor.

'Haunted by the Ghost,' Colm said. 'That's that muck you were singing along to when it was on the radio the other week, isn't it? Took me long enough to find it, an' all. Couple o' years old at this stage.'

'If you reckon it's muck then why'd you buy it?'

We sat back in our seats, listening to the song play. When it ended he hit play again. 'I hate Shane McGowan,' he said, his mouth twitching at the corners. 'And as for Sinead O'Connor...'

We drove towards my house with the song still playing. When we got there, Colm sprang from the van and opened my door, helping me down to the ground.

The rain was heavy by then but he stood in front of me, pressing his body against mine as he leaned into the van to press play again. 'S'pose we might as well make it our song, then,' he said. 'Seein' as you like it so much.'

He kissed me, and despite the rain we stayed that way until the song ended. It was me, eventually and reluctantly, who glanced at my watch and said, 'You'd better go. You'll be late.'

He sighed and got back into the driver's seat. I walked around and kissed him through the open window, me standing on my tiptoes, him leaning out and down towards me. When he finally turned the van to leave he played the song again, and called, 'Our song, so,' out through the window as he drove away.

I stayed standing in the rain, watching him go.

≈

I was still giddy when I went into the house. I made one of those funny sounds, not quite a scream, not quite a moan, when I saw her sitting at the kitchen table. She was dripping wet, staring into a cup of black coffee.

'You're soaked,' I said.

'You too.'

'Yeah, that's why I'm about to go upstairs for a hot shower and a change of clothes. You should too. Are you all right? How did last night go?'

She looked down at her cup and started to cry.

≈

It was a perfect evening. They walked back holding hands and bought chips and chicken curry along the way. Oisín tried to make the takeaway look nice, putting it onto his parents' best plates, lighting candles, and pouring their cans of cider into wine glasses. He even brought his slippers downstairs for Carina to wear when she complained of her feet being sore after a night in high heels. She watched the bend of his neck and the way the candlelight gave his dark hair a shine, as he delicately undid the straps of her shoes and slid the slippers onto her feet.

Neither of them ate much. They just looked at each other with blushing smiles until, when Oisín went to refill her glass, Carina said, 'I won't have any more or it'll just send me to sleep.'

'You're tired, then?'

It was so stupid, she thought. They both knew why he had asked her to stay. They both knew why she had come. And yet she shrugged and said, 'A little bit, I suppose. Are you?'

Oisín took a second to reply. 'Do you want... do you want to go to bed, so?'

That should have been the first indicator, Carina supposed: that she couldn't just nod, and smile, and head for the stairs.

He went on, saying, 'I don't mean we have to... you could sleep in the spare room while I was in mine, or you could stay in mine while I slept in the spare room. Or I could sleep in mine and you could stay in the spare room – did I already say that? I think I already said that.'

'Yours,' she said nervously. 'We'll both sleep in yours.'

They stayed that way for another few seconds until Carina said, 'Will we go up, so?'

With a deep breath Oisín rose, and Carina followed him to his bedroom. It was small and tidy. CDs, tapes and books were lined, neatly and alphabetically, on shelves. The walls were filled with astronomical pictures and the ceiling had a huge, blown-up poster covering it almost entirely.

'That's you,' he said quietly, looking at the ground. 'I put it there the day after I met you.'

Carina's breath shuddered with wonder as she asked, 'My constellation?'

He brought a chair for her to stand upon, and stood himself on a small stepladder as he pointed out the features to her. She wanted to kiss him so much then. It came over her in a wave, like nothing she had ever known, as his fingers traced the blurred edges of the nebula Eta Carinae. But she was afraid that if she leant over to kiss him they would both topple to the ground. So she stepped down from her chair, held out her hands to him, and helped him down from his stepladder.

They undressed then, slowly, without kissing or touching, and he lifted up the duvet, letting her slide under first into his single bed.

'Oh, wait,' he said. 'We should have music.'

He put on his robe and got out of the bed, and then glanced through his tapes and CDs before putting a tape on to play. Finley Quaye came on, singing, 'Sonic Fruits,' and Carina smiled.

'I love that song.'

'I made this tape for you,' Oisín said, taking his robe off only once he was back under the covers. 'I meant to give it to you before now, but...'

They began to kiss, on the lips at first, as song after perfect song played. Aretha Franklin was singing, 'Ain't No Way,' when Oisín moved to kiss her body. He covered every inch while Carina lay, wondering: was it the sadness of the song, or the beauty of the ceiling, or was there some other reason for her feeling the way she did? Every now and then she touched him, or kissed him, but only because she felt like she should. She knew her movements were half-hearted – which was odd, because her heart felt so full she thought it might crash through her chest.

By the time his fingers went into her she was feeling like her skin was crawling. Like she was on fire. Like she had to get out of the bed before she burned. Because even the tiniest touch of his: she could feel it. She could feel. She could feel it all the way through her and it made her want to cry, to scream.

She wriggled away from him, biting her lip, feeling her teeth press down hard and drawing blood. 'I'm really sorry,' she said. 'I'm just not feeling it. Maybe... maybe we've left it so long that we're sort of – maybe we're just supposed to be friends.'

She didn't know how she expected him to react. A sulk. An, 'Ah, c'mon.' She told me that if he _had_ said, 'Ah, c'mon,' she probably would have slept with him. I thought that she definitely would have, although I didn't tell her that. I didn't tell her how glad I was to know that, for once, she didn't go through with something she'd rather not, with a sickly smile upon her face as she tried to glide her mind far above her body.

Oisín didn't say, 'C'mon.' He didn't sulk, or complain, or cajole. Instead he said, in the softest voice, 'We can just lie here and listen to the music and fall asleep. Okay?'

And the tears came then, just tiny almost-sobs in the back of her throat, as he put his arms around her and fell asleep to the sound of the harmonium on Jeff Buckley's 'Lover, You Should've Come Over.'

She lay against his chest, and even that intimacy was too much. When she was sure that his sleep was deep, she turned over so that she was lying flat on her belly, hands between her legs, covering herself, protecting herself, unable to staunch the memories of why she slept the way she did.
The Storm

The rain kept up for days. Colm and I saw each other as often as we could, but I was spending more time than ever at home. I used to curl up in a chair in the living room, looking out at the rain, waiting for him to come and take me to his room.

The need for him was like a fever. When I wasn't with him, I imagined our last time, reliving every kiss, every touch, remembering all the ways he made it perfect: how he looked at me; how he held me.

In his bedroom he had begun to form a collection of little things he thought I'd like – candles, CDs, books, pretty cushions. He drank wine with me, liking the taste even though he thought it was horrible before. I started to enjoy things I hadn't before, like curry cheese chips and Guinness, just because they were tastes I experienced with him. At first I would kiss his upper lip, where the foam from the Guinness had settled, or sometimes I stole a sip from his glass. He would pretend to be annoyed with me, but wouldn't be able to keep it up, breaking into smiles and laughter. One day, while I downed his whole pint in a few long gulps, he said, 'I always knew it'd be a stout-drinking woman who'd work her way into my heart.'

Carina was out a lot, walking, not seeming to notice the weather. Oisín would phone or call around, every single day. It was fine when she was out, because at least then I was telling the truth when I said I didn't know where she was. But when she was at home and she asked me to lie, I could hardly bear the look on Oisín's face as I turned him away yet again.

She didn't speak to me much, over those few days. I did try to talk to her once or twice, but she would look at me oddly, almost challengingly, and I would give up and leave her on her own. She spent a lot of time on the phone, and although she didn't discuss it with me, I knew what she was doing: she was trying to track Sarah down. She had a list of contacts she'd gotten from one of the St Mary's girls – phone numbers and addresses of hostels and bars in Australia – and she tried them all.

It was a week after she stayed at Oisín's when the rain finally ceased. I felt sticky when I woke, and I smiled when I saw the sun shining in through the bedroom window. It was going to be a perfect day, I decided. Colm finally had a night off, and we were going to go out to a restaurant. I had planned what to wear, how I would do my hair... I was going to spend the whole day getting ready.

I heard her curse loudly downstairs, so I knew that she was once again having no luck with her phone calls. A few seconds later I heard a door slam. When I got downstairs I could see that the wall behind the office door was scuffed, probably because she had kicked or pushed the door back against the wall. In the kitchen there were two chairs knocked over. It looked like she had started to make herself some breakfast, because toast had popped from the toaster and been left to go cold, and there was a spoonful of coffee in a cup by the kettle.

Carina was nowhere to be seen.

≈

I tried not to worry about her as the morning passed. She had spent so much time walking on her own over the past week, so her being gone so long was hardly out of the ordinary.

It was about four when the thunder began. I was in the bath shaving my legs, and I lay there listening to it grow closer with every rumble. When the lightning came I got out of the bath and dried off. The power went out a few minutes later. It was still bright enough to do my make-up and get dressed, but every movement I made was off, and I knew I'd made a mess of my eyeliner and I knew that my hair looked bad. There was a fleeting moment of annoyance with Carina. I had been looking forward to this evening, and my worry for her was ruining it before it began.

When the rain started up again about half past five, I decided to phone around. Oisín hadn't seen or heard from her and, hearing the fretful sound that came into his voice, I pretended that I could see her walking up the driveway. I tried Jennifer and Susan and anybody else I could think of, but no one had seen her all week.

I think it was around seven when I kicked off my shoes, put on wellies and a raincoat, and went outside.

I found her in the very first place I thought to look. She had taken the rowing boat out to the gazebo, and she was sitting there in the rain with her back to me.

'Carina!' I called.

She turned to look at me, shook her head, and looked away.

'Come in, sweetie,' I said. 'It's cats and dogs. You'll catch your death.'

This time she didn't even turn around to face me, but I think her shoulders hunched.

'Carina, please!' I called again, while she just sat there.

My father had taken his boat with him, and there was only the rowing boat that she had tied to the gazebo, so I just stood there, wondering what the hell I was going to do to get her back. I felt useless, helpless, and I hated the feeling because it was like being a child again. My hood had fallen down and my hair was soaking, and my make-up was running, and I just kept calling out to her, wishing I could bring myself to say the magic words that I needed to say to make her turn and look at me.

I must have been out there for at least an hour when Colm came. I don't know why it was that he came in, because I had planned to meet him at our gate, but maybe he heard me calling to Carina. He was dressed in his best jeans and a new shirt, and the shirt was beginning to stick to his skin.

'She won't come in,' I told him. 'She's been out there for hours.'

He looked at me in a strange way – I couldn't decide if he was shocked or annoyed – and then he took his shoes off, jumped into the lake and swam out to the gazebo.

They sat out there together for about five minutes. I have no idea what he said to her, or she to him, because I've never had the nerve to ask. I watched as he helped her into the boat, so gently, and rowed back to the shore.

She was shivering wildly, and he helped her into the house while I walked behind them listening to the squelch of my boots, watching the marks the mud made on the floor but not taking them off.

Colm directed things, telling me to get her some blankets and towels so she could dry off and get warm, but when I tried to hand them to her she backed away, her shivering becoming worse, and so I had to put them on the couch next to her.

There was no electricity, so I couldn't even busy myself with making hot drinks. I searched for a camping stove that I remembered us using during previous power cuts, but the mothers had cleared everything except the basic necessities. I couldn't even find any candles.

I kept looking at Colm as he sat next to Carina, drying her off. I was trying to gauge, I suppose, trying to figure out what he was thinking. I wished he would go. I wished that he had never seen us this way. When she finally did speak, I had an urge to clasp my hands over her mouth.

'Do you really not know what's wrong with me?' she asked, looking at me so suddenly and steadily that I felt my knees go weak. I glanced at Colm. He was looking at me the same way Carina was, waiting for my answer.

I shook my head. 'Carina... I don't – how would I know? Is it Oisín? Is that why you're upset, honey?'

She huddled the blankets tight around her and gazed at the ground.

'No,' she said, in a tiny voice. 'And yes. And you do know. You all know. We just don't say. I was over in the bungalow yesterday. I just – I wanted to – I sat there, on my bed, and I had the light on because it wasn't bright yet and when I left I forgot to switch it back off, I suppose, because when I was in your room last night...Vivienne, your bedroom looks directly into mine.'

I could see the whites of Colm's eyes flashing as lightning struck again. His head was turning slowly, from Carina to me and back again. I was so glad of the power cut then, because there was no way that in full light he would have missed the lie in my eyes. 'Carina... you've been out in the rain all day. I think you could be coming down with something, because nothing you're saying is making sense to me. I have no idea what you're going on about.'

There was silence when I finished. Horrible, dark silence. The house felt huge around me, while the three of us sat and said nothing.

It was Colm who broke the quiet. 'You need something hot,' he said, more to Carina than to me. 'And I need to dry off. I'll go and get changed, and then I'll go and get a takeaway and some hot teas for us all.'

'I'll light the fire while you're gone,' I said, knowing how pathetic I must have sounded to him.

He just grunted and left, and I felt Carina's eyes heavy on my back while I knelt in front of the hearth. The whole time he was gone we didn't say a word.

Colm returned with tea, chips, battered sausages and chicken curry, all things Carina loved, but she only ate a little before saying she was going to spend the night in the bungalow. Colm waited while she got pillows and a quilt from the hot press, and then he drove her across. He didn't come back to me afterwards. I suppose he went straight home.

The power came back shortly after they had gone. I watched the lights of the digital clocks on the oven and the microwave come on; the timers read midnight, and even though I knew they were wrong I didn't change them. I didn't even bother to reheat my food. I took my chicken curry upstairs and ate it cold, sitting on my bed, watching as Carina pulled her blinds shut and turned out her light.

≈

Colm was busy over the next few days but he called in every evening before he went to the hotel, to check on Carina. He would join her over at the bungalow, or go along with her on her walks.

He did come and see me as well, but he spent less time with me than he did with Carina. Even so, the five or ten minutes he was with me would drag on painfully, so that sometimes I wished he hadn't come at all. I would babble while he said hardly a thing. I would just go on about the stupidest things, like how long it had taken me to wash the dishes or how I thought I'd seen his badger friend on the lane.

He wouldn't give me a break by interrupting. He didn't look like he was embarrassed for me while I gabbled. He didn't really seem to be listening. I tested him one day, saying I'd seen an elephant in the garden playing tennis with the badger, but he just said, 'Well, I've got to get to work but we'll catch up soon.' He gave me a quick kiss and walked out the door without looking back.

Carina spent about the same amount of time with me as Colm did. She only really came to the house for food or clothes. There were no serious conversations, no questions, from either of them. What they said to each other I don't know, but to me they said little. I don't know if they had decided to forget about it, or if they just thought that there was no point in trying to talk to me.

In reality it was only about a week after the power cut when he called and suggested the day trip, but it felt like so much longer. When I answered the phone his voice sounded almost normal, and he said, 'So how about it, then? Fancy a spin to Loughcrew? I'll take the van.'

I fell into a chair. I tried to keep my tone easygoing when I said, 'Well, sure, that sounds all right,' but I don't think he bought it. Anyway, I grew a lot less excited as he talked, because he planned on inviting Oisín and Carina.

'Well, I've said it to Oish,' he went on. 'You say it to Carina, if you like. She'll be back from her walk in a while I reckon, but I won't get a chance to see her till tomorrow. Only you've got to swear not to tell her I've asked him along. She reckons she's messed with his head and he won't want to know, and I can't convince her she's way wide of the mark. Doesn't matter how we put it, if she thinks he'll be there she'll get all into a panic and just won't go. And then what'd be the point in any of us going?'

For a moment I felt angry, because it seemed the only reason he wanted me there was so he could get the two of them talking. I wanted to say, 'Do you think it's a good idea to spring a surprise on her, considering the way she's been acting?' But I was afraid that that would leave me wide open to questions, so I just said, 'Fine, so. I won't tell her.'

I tried to cheer up, hoping that a day trip might return things to normal for Colm and me, but I couldn't help wondering: if he wasn't so fixated on getting Carina and Oisín back together, would he even have called me in the first place?
The Hag's Chair

In County Meath, in an area called Loughcrew, there are hills that you can see for miles around. These hills are called Sliabh na Calliagh – the hills of the witch. They catch your eye instantly because of the mounds of stones – known as cairns – built on top. The cairns are supposed to be thousands of years old. I had seen them before from a distance, usually when I was on my way somewhere else. It was one of those places I always hoped I'd visit someday, maybe on one of the family days out we used to have.

Colm's plan was to climb one of these hills. He was in a good mood from the beginning of the journey. It helped, I think, that Carina didn't make a fuss or change her mind when she saw Oisín in the van. They didn't talk for the whole journey, although Colm made some attempts to get them speaking or at least to take part in the same conversation. It wasn't that there was a bad atmosphere. They had reverted to how they had been before they first spoke, casting nervous, fleeting glances at each other but not quite able to get their mouths to move.

By the time we arrived in the car park at Colm's chosen hill – Carnbane East – the sky was growing darker. As we trudged up the hill other people were rushing past us on their way back to their cars. There was a bench about three quarters of the way up, and we sat there for a few minutes catching our breaths and looking at the view. I wondered how long the rain would hold off, but I didn't say anything. None of us did. We all gulped down water as if we'd trekked across a desert, probably as an excuse to keep from talking.

What changed the mood, for Colm and me anyway, was what we saw when we got to the top. There was a sheep standing on top of the biggest mound, the one that's romantically named Cairn T. The sheep glared at us, bleating threateningly, and we broke into laughter. For a while the sheep tried to bleat us into submission, but the more we laughed, the quieter it became. Eventually it scrambled down the stones and disappeared.

I had just stopped laughing when I stood in what was probably the sheep's crap. This was even funnier to Colm than the sight of the sheep on the cairn.

'Guess the sheep got the last laugh after all,' he said.

'Oh, aren't you hilarious,' I retorted, trying to act annoyed.

He brushed up against me then, accidentally I think, while he was still laughing at his joke, and I erupted into giggles again.

I felt strange as soon as we got to the top. I suppose it was the altitude. I've returned there since and I don't notice it as much any more, but on that day I felt light-headed, and I think that it might have helped the laughter along. Carina felt it too.

'Now we know why these were called the high places,' she joked.

Everyone laughed again, but Oisín's laugh stood out. Even to me it had the sweetest, softest quality.

Carina grew embarrassed and went to walk around the hill on her own. We all went our separate ways for a while, just wandering around and looking at things. I had a drawing pad with me and I made some sketches, while Colm took photos of the cairns and of the view.

There was a locked gate at Cairn T, covering the entrance to the inside of the mound, and we only found out later that there was a place we should have gone beforehand to borrow the key. I peered through the bars of the gate and, though it was hard to make out much, I saw a dark and narrow passageway that seemed to lead off to smaller chambers.

After a while I heard Colm talking to Carina, and I walked over to where they were standing.

Carina was looking at a huge stone.

'No way I'm sitting on it,' she said, shivering. 'What did you say it was? A wishing chair? It looks more like a sacrificial altar or something.'

Colm laughed. 'It's the Hag's Chair,' he told her. 'I'm telling you, anything you wish for will come true if you sit in that chair.'

Oisín came around to where we were standing – probably, like I had, on hearing the voices. Immediately Carina hugged her jacket tighter around her body and walked away. Oisín tried to look as if it didn't matter to him but he was chewing so hard on his lips that, when he stopped, I could see tooth-marks there.

'Let's climb up the cairn,' said Colm, slapping Oisín lightly on the arm, and the two of them rushed towards the top.

'Jesus!' cried Colm. 'The view's something else up here. You two should come up.'

I looked around but I couldn't see Carina. I climbed up, picking my way clumsily over the stones. For the first few seconds after I reached the top, I was stunned by the view. It was making me dizzy though, and there wasn't much room. Colm put his arm around my waist to steady me, and Oisín, without saying a word, walked down and took a seat on the Hag's Chair.

Colm's arm left my waist almost as soon as Oisín was gone, and to hide my disappointment I moved away to explore. I found a grille a little way down and looked through it, into the cairn. I thought I might see more than I had through the gate at the entrance, but still I couldn't make much out.

'It's a pity we can't get in there,' I said. 'I'd love to have a look inside.'

'I'd love to see this place at night,' Oisín called up to me. 'I read this book where the writer said he thought it was probably built as an observatory.'

'I thought it was like Newgrange,' said Colm. 'Passage graves, tombs, whatever. Doesn't this place get the light shining through on the solstice as well?'

'Nah. It's equinoxes with this place,' Oisín told us. 'Light shines in, right through where you're standing Viv, in through that grille. Newgrange gets the light at the winter solstice. This book said that all of the spiral drawings on the rocks around here, they might be astronomical observations.'

I laughed. 'I did some of that last night – observing astronomical thingimibobs. Well, when I say _observing,_ what I mean is that I glanced out my bedroom window and I saw a shooting star.'

'Oh yeah?' said Colm. 'What'd you wish for, then?'

'Like I'm gonna tell you.'

Oisín's voice took on a really excitable tone when he spoke. His words came quickly and his eyes shone. 'Meteors. Comets, burning up in the atmosphere. It was a good night for them. I made a wish as well.'

'Oh.' I hunched down on the rocks. 'I didn't know that's what they were. Just meteors, comets, whatever. I kind of wish I still didn't, to be honest. I feel all deflated now. Like some of the magic's gone.'

'But it's not,' said Oisín. 'I know what they are and I still wish on them. When I look up at the sky, I _want_ to learn about what's up there. And it's even better, even more amazing, when you know what _is_ up there. It's... I dunno how to describe it. The need to know, and to still be amazed once I _do_ know. It's like...'

Carina must have been standing close by, listening, because when she walked over to the chair she said quietly, 'Reverence,' before hoisting herself up onto the stone and taking a seat next to Oisín.

There was something about them, once they were side by side, that told me it was time to leave them alone. Colm and I climbed down over the opposite side of the mound so that we wouldn't pass by them.

I didn't see its approach – it seemed to just suddenly be there – a raven, caught on the wind directly above the Hag's Chair. It hung there while Carina and Oisín stared up in silence like children entranced. I looked up, too, along with Colm. We couldn't stop looking for some reason, all four of us, at the simple spectacle of a bird in the sky. We stayed watching until the wind changed and the bird was released.

Carina told me afterwards that she and Oisín didn't speak until the bird was completely out of sight.

'I lied,' she told him. 'I don't just want to be your friend.'

Oisín took her hand easily, as if the last week had never happened. 'Good.'

'Don't you want to know why I lied?'

'If you want to tell me.'

Carina took a deep breath. 'I've been taking these long walks every day since last Friday. Only I'm not looking around at the lakes or the flowers or even enjoying the wind on my face. I'm in my head. I'm imagining the future. And what will it be like? Will I go from boyfriend to boyfriend, because it's so much easier to sleep with someone when you don't give a damn about them? Do I just watch the days go by, waiting to go to sleep so I can dream about you? I dream about _you,_ Oisín. Every single night I dream about you. I said I didn't feel that way about you, but the truth was I felt too much. It was new. It was too much.'

He tightened his hold on her hand, and his voice, when he spoke, sounded hoarse. 'I missed you like mad. Everything else – we'll work it out. All right?'

She nodded, sniffling, snuggling into him on the Hag's Chair. 'All right.'

≈

The wind grew stronger and it began to rain heavily, so we went back to the car park as soon as Oisín and Carina were ready. It seemed to take us half as long as it had taken to get to the top.

I had packed a picnic for the trip, and we ate it in the van with the heater blowing and the windows misting over. The tomato in the sandwiches had soaked into the bread and made it soggy, but even so I remember those sandwiches as though they were the best BLTs I ever tasted. Maybe it was because we were all so happy while we ate. We didn't even talk much, but there was a certain feeling.

Sometimes, in memory, you hold on to a day, or a time, or a moment. It's not about what you did or where you were. There's an atmosphere surrounding the time or the event that makes you wish you could stay that way forever. And that's how I felt that afternoon, with Colm wolfing down soggy sandwiches and grinning at me, with Carina and Oisín drinking warm white wine from the same plastic glass. I wanted to live in that feeling, in that moment. I wanted nothing to ever change.
Money

When we got back from Loughcrew, my relationship with Colm went back to how it had been before the evening of the storm. We had no big discussion about it, but I wondered if he felt like I did: now that Carina was happy again, we could forget about the reasons she had been so sad. But if we were both in on this unspoken agreement, then Carina was too. She acted like my best friend once more. She never mentioned my bedroom looking down onto hers again. I wanted to talk about it, I never stopped wanting to talk about it, but the fear just wouldn't go away, and the words would not come.

It was almost August, and our money was running low. We had no contact number for the mothers, but we did have one for my father. We stared at his number in the Filofax for about an hour one morning, standing just beside the kitchen table, occasionally glancing along the corridor at the office door. He always provided the money. It was what he did. He provided it, he controlled it – even now that he had left the house. Neither one of us wanted to lift up the Filofax and take it into the office.

'We could get jobs, I suppose,' I said. 'That's what most people our age do.'

Carina smiled unsurely. 'Do you think? Would they mind?'

I shrugged. 'How would they even know? No one's phoned us for weeks.'

We both sat down at the same time, as if the idea of going behind their backs – as if even the conversation itself – was making us faint.

After a few seconds I closed the Filofax. I did it ceremoniously, trying to shoot Carina a cocky smile, trying to pretend I was brave. Of course she knew it was bravado and not bravery, but she giggled anyway, grabbing the Filofax and shutting it away in a dresser drawer.

After lunch we went into town. We tried the petrol station, the chipper, the Long House, the bookies... we walked along the street, trying almost all of the businesses we passed. Every job had been filled, mostly by people we'd been to primary school with.

When we got to the supermarket asthmatic Brenda was behind the till, next to the manager. We hadn't spoken to her since sixth class, and she gawped at us while we spoke to the manager. He was the same man who had discovered the baby years earlier and Carina flinched, as she always did when she saw him. Never once, though, did he appear to recognise her.

'What'd ye want jobs for, anyways?' Brenda said, after the manager told us there was nothing available. 'Sure ye're loaded, aren't ye?'

She continued gawping at us while we walked out.

'That's it, so,' said Carina. 'There's almost nowhere left that we could walk to. Unless we got the bus somewhere. Cavan, maybe. We could get the bus to Cavan town.'

We were both looking at a faded-yellow building while she spoke.

'Maybe,' I said. 'But we could try Mangan's, first. I mean, I will, even if you don't want to. It doesn't matter if only one of us works. We still have some money left. We only need a little extra for going out and stuff.'

She winced. 'Really? Mangan's? Are you sure?'

We looked at the exterior of the pub again. It was right in the middle of the town, and it was a place we never went into because it was the haunt of middle-aged men who spent all day arguing with one another and salivating over every single woman who walked past. Bartlett Mangan was at least sixty, and he had never married – although it wasn't for the lack of trying.

When we walked in he stared at Carina with his mouth hanging open. Even though I was the one who asked if he had any work going, he kept looking at Carina when he said, 'I could prob'ly manage a few hours a week for one of ye.'

I thought about what I knew of the man, and figured that if she did take the job, she would probably be the latest in a long line of inappropriate proposals.

Carina shuddered and said, 'Yeah, well, thanks. We'll think about it,' before grabbing my hand and rushing us out of the pub.

We went home, Bartlett Mangan's leering having dampened any ideas I had. She couldn't work there. I wouldn't let her be looked at like that.

Over the course of that afternoon she said, every few minutes, that she thought she could manage it, that she wouldn't mind working there. I didn't tell her what my real fear was. I thought of Mr Considine, and of all the others she had been with just because they asked. Would she do something like that again? _Could_ she do something like that again, now that she had Oisín? I didn't think so, but what if someone forced the issue, what if someone cajoled and she felt like... I don't know, like what she said to me that night about Mr Considine – that he asked and she couldn't say no.

I took charge, saying that we were going to do what we should have done to begin with. We were going to budget: spaghetti, noodles, cheap white bread, frozen chips; they were our staples, so that we could afford to go out a couple of nights a week. Beans on toast became a luxury meal, and if we wanted cheese on top, well that was absolute decadence.

I think she was secretly glad that we hadn't found work, because it meant more time to spend with Oisín. They spent whole days together, lying in one of the spare bedrooms in our house, just talking. After two weeks of being back together, Carina decided that she was ready. She knew exactly how she wanted it to happen, and it came from dreaming about Oisín. She told me about it one night while we lay awake in our bedroom.

'I have all these dreams about him,' she said. 'I mean, they'll start out as nightmares. I'll be running away from something I can't see or – well, sometimes it's something I can. Or sometimes I'll be trying to rescue this little girl, because she's the one who's being chased and I'm the one who has to save her. But then he appears. Just when I'm most frightened, Oisín appears. And he puts his arms around me, and I feel warm, and I feel safe, and he tells me he's going to help me feel clean.

'Sometimes it's the sea where we swim. Sometimes he draws me a bath, or turns on a shower. And sometimes... sometimes he takes me to the lake. Our lake. Little Lake. So that's what I want to do. I want to swim in the lake with him, swim out to the gazebo.'

I was glad of the dark, but maybe she heard my intake of breath because she said, 'What's wrong?'

I turned my body so that I was facing the wall. 'Nothing. Just really tired.'

'We'll go to sleep, so. Vivvy, you probably already know this, but I've been trying to get in touch with Sarah.'

'I know,' I told her, squeezing my eyes shut.

I thought she might say something more, but she just drew in some breath, went silent, and neither of us spoke for the rest of the night.
Tseen She

The chosen day was murky and warm, with only the slightest breeze; even so, ripples were forming here and there on the water, and I found myself shivering every time I looked out at the lake.

For the whole day the light was odd, so that I had to look at the clock to be sure of the time. Any moment of the day looked the same as the next, so that it was hard to tell whether it was dawn, dusk, or somewhere in between. I watched Carina while she spent the day getting ready, rowing to and from the gazebo to bring out what she needed. By eight o'clock there were candles, blankets, cushions, towels, red wine and thick, heavy, purple drinking glasses she had bought for the occasion. They were shaped almost exactly like the goblets used for altar wine at the church near St Mary's, and I wondered if she'd noticed, though I didn't point it out. I just agreed, when she showed them to me, that they were perfect.

Colm was working at the hotel and wouldn't be home until at least half past twelve, but I went to his house to wait for him just before Oisín was due to arrive. I wanted to leave them alone.

She went to the gate ten minutes before he was due, but already she could see him walking along the lane. They barely said hello as he followed her through the gate. It had all been planned carefully, and he knew where they were going. He walked behind her as she cut through the trees on the way to the lake. When they got to the bank he jumped into the boat first, and held out his arms to help her inside.

They both took an oar. Even though Oisín had never rowed before, his strokes matched Carina's perfectly and it felt, she said, like gliding. When they got there the feeling became a mixture of horror and happiness.

'I suppose we should undress now,' she said nervously.

'I'll look away, if you like.'

'No, don't do that.' She shook her head. 'Okay, let's just do it.'

She squeezed her eyes shut and began to undress. Oisín didn't look. He closed his own eyes, and undressed himself. When she had finished she opened her eyes just enough to see where she was going, before walking to the edge.

'Are you ready?' she said to Oisín.

He blinked, saw where she was standing, and moved to stand beside her.

'Are you?'

She nodded, laughed self-consciously, and dived.

When Oisín followed, her laugh became giddy, and she found herself looking at him, feeling heat spread through her belly as she looked at his mouth.

'I love your teeth,' she said.

'My teeth? Jeez, of all the things I'd like you to be admiring right now...'

He was smiling as he spoke though, just as much as she was.

'I love yours, too,' he told her. 'That tiny little gap between your front teeth.'

'Yours are like caveman teeth. Really strong looking. Really perfect and white and square and... I just love them.'

She had begun to swim outwards with wide breast strokes, and Oisín followed her wherever she went. They stayed out for only a few minutes.

'I don't think I need to swim any longer,' she said. 'Do you want to go in?'

He helped her back up onto the gazebo, scrambling up after. They wrapped towels around themselves straight away, and Oisín poured wine. She had already arranged the blankets and cushions, earlier on, into a makeshift bed, and she sat looking at them while her fingers toyed with the fabric of her towel.

'We can just drink and chat,' he said as he handed her a glass.

For a while Carina said nothing to that. She busied herself lighting candles. She had brought over candle holders – red glass lanterns – so that they would stay alight in the breeze, and she arranged them on the rail that ran around the gazebo. When all nine were lit, she looked at him.

'I don't want to just chat. I want to sleep with you. I've never wanted – no, scratch that, it's not that I've never wanted anything so much – it's that I've never wanted _anything._ Full stop. Just promise me something, though.'

He nodded.

'Promise me that... if I get weird or anything... just ignore me. Just keep going.'

He had been about to take a drink, but he paused with the glass almost at his lips and stared at her, horrified.

'Never,' he said, gasping the word. 'Not in a million years. How could you even think I could say yes to that? We'll _wait_ Carina. I'll still want to be with you no matter how long it takes before you're ready for that. I'll still want to be with you even if you're _never_ ready.'

Maybe if he hadn't said it so sincerely, things would have gone differently. Maybe if he hadn't been so good the night they spent in his bedroom. His words, everything about him, both eased and stunned her. She leant forward to kiss him and, slowly and shakily, they slid their towels off and went beneath the blankets. The moisture from the wood was soaking through so that the blankets underneath them were damp, but that didn't matter. He kissed and touched her, softly, opening his eyes every few seconds to see her reaction.

'I think the water worked,' she said, barely audible. 'I almost feel like a virgin.'

It was easy, she told me afterwards. And a little bit terrifying. It was so full of feeling, every single second. His face, when he came, was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Still inside her, looking at her with eyes wide, he said, 'I love you.'

She had never, until that moment, believed in those words. She had never, until that moment, said, 'I love you too.'

They fell asleep on the gazebo. When they woke, hours later, and began to pack everything away she realised: they hadn't drunk even a sip of wine.
The Viewing

The next day we got a phone call from the estate agent to tell us that a couple wanted to view the property. The mothers hadn't left a key with the agent, so we would have to be there for the viewing.

'Should we tidy or something?' asked Carina unenthusiastically.

'Nah. Well, maybe just a bit. I mean, we want the place to be sold, don't we?'

She rolled her eyes, stomped towards a cupboard, and took out the vacuum cleaner.

We spent the morning cleaning the place up, throwing out the bottles and cans we had accumulated, picking our clothes up from the bedroom floor and hiding them in the laundry basket and the washing machine – some unwashed clothes even wound up being stuffed into the dryer, just because there was nowhere else to put them. We were in the middle of scrubbing the kitchen counters when we heard the car arrive. It was a youngish couple, maybe in their thirties, and the woman was pregnant.

To begin with they appeared irritated, which was probably down to the fact that Carina and I didn't know what to do with ourselves. We could tell that the estate agent would rather we weren't there, but she didn't know her way around, so she needed us to go along on the tour to show them where things were.

Over the summer, Carina and I had developed a habit of leaving every door open all the time. We hadn't spoken about it; it was just something we had both instinctively done. But now, with these people, when we came to certain doors I had to stay my hand to keep myself from shutting the door tight. It was the oddest impulse, but I could see from Carina's face, and from the way she balled her fists during parts of the tour, that she was having the same problem. To overcome it we would add ridiculous comments, like, 'Um, so it's quite a large bedroom,' or, 'And, yeah, this is the, ah, the living room. We watch TV in here.'

The longer they walked around, the less irritated they seemed. They were smiling more, and taking second looks at rooms, and saying things like, 'Your grandmother's dressing table would look good at that window there, wouldn't it?'

'I can't believe we'd have our _own_ lake,' the woman said, squeezing her husband's hand as they stood at the back of the house. 'Little Lake, though. Maybe we could change its name to something Irish. Lough Beag, does that sound stupid? Is that already a name?'

We hadn't cleaned the bungalow that morning. There was nothing to clean, really, other than the layer of dust that had settled on almost everything. We could have at least opened a window, I suppose.

The estate agent gave us a funny look when she walked in, and she said, 'We'll just leave the front door open, I think, to air the place a bit.'

I stayed in the kitchen while they were there, and so did Carina. We stood with our backs against the counter next to the sink, and I think I probably gawked at the fridge the whole time, wondering if the milk I had found years earlier was still in there.

When the estate agent said, 'We're all done here girls,' Carina and I rushed to the front door.

As we were walking out the husband said, 'Yeah, I think this would make a great guest house. Course, we'd never get rid of your parents then, would we?'

The woman laughed and Carina looked at me, appearing as confused as I felt.

'Can't they feel it?' her look said to me. 'How can they not feel it?'

The man raised his eyebrows at his wife as if to get her approval, before he turned to the agent and said, 'Well, we might be interested. We need to talk money first, though.'

The agent smiled, and just then her mobile rang. She held a hand up to the couple and said, 'Be with you in a tick,' as she walked away.

'So, I'll bet the two of you loved growing up in a place like this,' the man said, looking at us as though we were children. 'Playing in those woods must've been great altogether.'

We made small talk for a few minutes, but I was mostly glancing over at the agent, noticing how agitated she was becoming. If she _could_ have slammed her phone down, then she would have.

She punched the End Call button and glared at me. 'I suppose you knew about this? I suppose you thought it'd be funny to waste our time.'

'What?' I asked. 'Knew about what?'

She shook her head and turned to the couple. 'I'm _so_ sorry. The seller's only gone and taken it off the market. Listen, I've got better on my books than this...'

She went on like that while the couple looked at us with annoyed faces and followed her to the car. Carina and I watched them drive away, and then went into the house. Without a contact number for the mothers there was only one way for us to find out what was happening. We looked at each other.

'I'm not going to ring him,' I said. 'It's bad enough having to drag information out of the mothers. I'm not ringing him.'

Carina nodded and gave me a small, tight smile. 'Well anyway. We'll be at college soon. Hopefully.'

'Yeah,' I said hollowly. 'None of this'll even matter then.'
Dreams

There were no more calls from the estate agent, and no calls from the mothers. Over the first week of August we received a postcard from Graham and Michael, and it came from Alicante. They didn't write much, just, 'Miss you two. We were expecting you by now. Mothers are driving us round the bend. Come over!!!'

The postcard had a picture of a goat running up a hill – no hotel address, no phone number. The boys just assumed we knew, that we had been told, that we had been invited.

We didn't shake our heads, or scream about it, or talk about it; we just got on with the rest of our summer.

Oisín and Carina were spending every day at our house. Even though they would stay downstairs if I was there and make an effort to include me in their conversation, I knew that they really wanted to sneak off upstairs, so I would leave them and go to the farm.

The Barrys kept a key under a purple weed-filled flowerpot, which Colm told me I could use. I got into the habit of waiting in his bedroom, lying on his bed, with no music playing and no book to read. Just listening to the wind and waiting.

I had to go home sometimes, to shower or to wash some clothes. I would try to make a bit of noise when I arrived, so that they wouldn't be surprised while they were in the middle of something. But even if I shouted out, 'Hey guys, I'm home!' they wouldn't always hear me.

They listened to music a lot of the time. One day, as I walked by the spare bedroom on my way to take a shower, the CD they had been playing came to an end. Because the door was ajar, I could hear every word.

'You have to stop watching me while I sleep,' she said. 'There's a split second when I wake, and I get frightened by you staring down at me before I realise it's you.'

' _You_ get frightened?' His voice sounded hoarse, almost broken. 'I get frightened watching you sleep. I keep wanting to wake you up. You toss and turn and cry out. You look terrified and I look at you because I'm wondering whether to shake you awake or...

'Do you know what I wish, Carrie? I wish I could break into your dreams. I wish I could make everything bad piss off and leave you alone.'

There was a moment of silence before she spoke.

'What do you dream about?'

'I don't dream much any more,' he said. 'Used to. I had this one, a good while back. Probably about a month or so before I first saw you.'

'What was it about?'

'You. And not you. It was... in this dream I was in love. I couldn't see her face, or at least I couldn't remember it when I woke up. All I could really remember was the feeling.'

'How was that about me?'

'Because it's how I knew. When I saw you in the Long House I felt exactly like I did in the dream. Absolutely, positively in love.'
Reverence

The exam results came out in mid-August. Carina and I opted to travel to St Mary's to collect our results, rather than wait extra time to receive them in the post. We didn't do as brilliantly as our parents had expected, but we weren't surprised about that.

All of our St Mary's friends travelled to the school that day. Lucy Hanley organised a coach to take us all from the school to a party in Dublin, and although Carina and I had originally planned to go along, once we got to the school we changed our minds. It felt like boarding school had been decades earlier, instead of just months. It didn't help that Lucy was being her usual self, talking about having used her 'connections' to get us all into an exclusive club in Dublin for the occasion. I envisioned how the evening would be – listening to Lucy's boasts about how well she had done in the exams, and how her fabulous father had helped her organise the party – and it seemed unbearable. Carina felt the same about it as I did, and we travelled back to Cavan to meet our friends at the Long House instead.

The place was quieter than usual. Because of it being results night the staff thought (for the first time in my memory) that they had better check for IDs. Most of our friends were eighteen except for Susan, and she wasn't too happy about the fact that, when she was turned away from the door, most of us went in without her. After a half hour or so we felt guilty and left, all of us going to the nightclub at the hotel where Colm worked, and Susan managed to get in along with the rest of us.

Carina and Oisín were in strange moods all night. Oisín had done better than he expected, and it was almost certain that he would get a place on the astrophysics course in University College Cork. Carina and I hadn't applied to Cork for anything, and over and over during the night I heard her say, 'I would have applied there if I knew you when I was filling out the application.' Oisín made a few comments about possibly deferring, and they had a minor argument at around eleven.

Colm seemed completely disinterested the whole night long. He had done well, but just shrugged when I congratulated him about his results. I heard him speak to Paddy over the course of the night about what colleges they had applied to, and whether they had enough points.

'You'll be able to do your agriculture course now,' said Paddy, slurring. 'You an' all the other sheep shaggers.'

Colm shrugged. I tried not to watch, or listen, but I couldn't help but notice how blank his face was when he said, 'What's the point? Really? I don't want to be on another farm, and the chances of me getting to stay on my own are slimmer by the day. I'll just keep going with my jobs till I can think of something I want to do.'

There was no anger in his expression. There was nothing that I could read in his voice. I walked over to the girls, leaving him to his conversation. The whole evening I was unable to stop thinking about what would happen if I received any college offers. Would it be the end of Colm and me?

≈

Over that period of time I felt constantly afraid. It became clear that Colm was going to stay in Cavan, but I knew that I had to leave. We didn't speak about it, really. Part of me wanted to stay at home, no matter what that meant, as long as I would be near him. I had all sorts of fantasies about him begging me to stay, telling me he couldn't live without me, that we could get jobs together and live happily ever after. We could save our money and buy a farm of our own, and I could bake cakes and make huge dinners while Colm worked outside, gaining more freckles.

As the days passed, college offers arrived. Carina and I somehow scraped our way into the Arts course in UCD. We had other offers, but as that was the only one we had both received there was no doubt that we would be going there.

Close to the day we were to begin I received a phone call from my father.

We never knew anything about his investments, so it came as news to find out that he owned some flats on the quays in Dublin city, and that there was one available in which we could live. Although, even if he hadn't owned so much property, I suppose I always knew that he would be organising where we lived. After I'd spoken to him I found Carina sitting on the bank of the lake. She wasn't happy to hear about the flat.

'We don't _have_ to live there,' she told me. 'We can get jobs.'

'We should have started working ages ago,' I said. 'We shouldn't have given up so easily. If we'd gone into Cavan we would've found something.'

'Shoulda woulda coulda, Viv.' She threw a stone into the water and watched it sink. 'We can still do it in Dublin. We can still _get_ jobs.'

'We don't even have the money to pay for registration or books or anything, unless we let him help us. And...' I didn't quite know how to put my worries into words, and I was angry with myself for having them, but even so I said, 'And you _know,_ Carrie... you know as well as I do – this is going to go down like a lead balloon. They're not going to be happy about this.'

We went backwards and forwards. Every so often Carina would stop arguing and look around. I knew how much she wanted us to live on our own. I wanted to tell her that it was possible, that it was necessary. I knew it was the right thing, for her, especially. But going against them was such a terrifying thought.

After a while she said, 'I suppose you're right. Who knows what they'll do if we try and go out on our own. Doesn't matter if he owns the flat, I suppose. At least we won't be here.'

I wanted to throw myself prostrate in front of her then, I really did. I wanted to beg for her forgiveness. There I was, talking her into living in a place she would hate, talking her into going along with what they wanted.

I shook my head and took her hand tightly in mine. 'No. No, you had it right in the first place. Here, or that flat of his... one's as bad as the other, isn't it? We'll do what you want, Carrie. We'll get jobs. We'll give it a go. We'll be out of there as soon as we can afford it.'

Carina swallowed, looking at me almost disbelievingly. 'Really? I mean – really? Promise me we'll do that. We won't stay in his flat _any_ longer than we have to?'

'I promise.'

≈

A few days before we were due to leave Carina answered the phone. I could hear that it was Pauline she was speaking to, and Carina's expression grew harder, and her answers terser, as the conversation went on.

'Three days and they'll be back,' she said when she hung up. 'The boys are already back at their boarding school – they went straight from Spain. Can you believe it? They said it's only temporary, them moving back here. Until they decide what to do with this place.'

We didn't rush around in some mad panic, the way you always see teenagers in films do when their parents are coming home. We didn't tidy at all. We just packed our bags ready for our move and spent as much time with Colm and Oisín as we possibly could.

Colm would come straight from work to collect me every day. I waited by the gate if the weather was good, and when it was raining I watched from the landing window for his van. We didn't go anywhere, for those days. We spent every minute we had in the farmhouse, in his little bed.

We didn't talk much about what would happen when I was gone. I was afraid to ask him to have a long-distance relationship. It wasn't that far, really, but it felt as if it was. I knew I would have to work so that Carina and I could live somewhere other than the flat. Colm would have little spare time, because he continued to work two jobs. If we couldn't make time to be together, then it seemed impossible that we would last. Every minute with him I was on the brink of crying, but I stayed upbeat and didn't broach the subject.

Unlike Colm and I, Carina and Oisín did discuss what would happen. They were staying together, she told me. They would call each other as often as they could, and they would visit when they had the money. In the meantime, with neither of them working, they got to spend all of their time together.

≈

It was the last night we would have the house to ourselves, just before the mothers were due back from Spain.

I was packing the last of my things, and I went up to my bedroom to get something. I saw that there was a light on in Carina's old bedroom. I meant to draw my blind straight away, but as I stood there I felt like I was frozen to the spot. My hand was on the rope of the blind, but I couldn't move. My eyes were wide open, and I don't think I even blinked.

Carina and Oisín were on the bed with no covers over their bodies. The light bulb in the centre of the ceiling flickered as if the bulb was about to blow. Every other second, it cast odd shadows across their faces.

Carina had told me that things were amazing with Oisín. I don't know what I thought she meant by amazing. I don't know what I imagined, if I ever imagined the two of them together, but I don't think it was anything like this. This was sedate.

He was on top, moving slowly and looking down at her. She had her eyes open, I could tell, because the light would reflect off the whites every time the bulb flickered. She seemed to be looking up at him, intensely, while her fingers moved through his hair. It made me think of worship. It made me think of absolute adoration, the way her eyes stayed locked on his. It reminded me of the word she had used when we visited the cairns at Loughcrew: reverence.
Part Four
First Weeks in Dublin

We both got jobs straight away. The ease with which we found the jobs was a sign, according to Carina, that we were doing the right thing in breaking away. It was particularly significant, to her, that the job she found was in a book shop on Abbey Street, one with a huge secondhand section in the basement.

'It's my idea of heaven, being there with all those books,' she told me. 'Maybe I'll even be able to get my hands on copies of the ones that got wrecked.'

My own job was in a bar close to college. It wasn't my idea of heaven. It was just a job.

We were staying in my father's flat, but I don't know if I would say we lived there. All we really did in that flat was sleep. Every morning Carina burst out through the doors and rushed to the number ten bus stop as though she was leaving a burning building. I understood why she was that way. The flat reminded me of the bungalow. The kitchen was small, utilitarian, and spotlessly clean, just like the bungalow's had been. The cupboards were even the same colour and style, with identical handles. The first few days there I was afraid to open the fridge. It was stupid, and I couldn't explain to her why I had left a carton of milk sitting on the counter to go off rather than open the refrigerator door. I couldn't explain to her why, on the first day he brought us there with all of our belongings, I looked straight at the kitchen windowsill, honestly expecting to see a small wooden box.

We both worked a lot of hours – almost full-time, really – and I don't know how we managed to fit it in around college. We ate almost nothing, and didn't buy a thing that wasn't absolutely necessary. It was worth it, though, to see her face when we pooled our wages at the end of our first week.

Carina heard about a room in a house-share closer to the campus, one where we wouldn't need to pay a huge deposit. I went along with her to view it over the course of our second week in Dublin. It was barely bigger than a box room, and the two beds were so close together that we might as well have been sharing a bed.

But I had promised her, and we had to leave. Sure, we could have saved for a few weeks more and found somewhere bigger, but I didn't think she would last much longer in the flat.

In all we only spent two weeks in the flat on the quays. When it came time to leave, neither of us wanted to be the one to make the phone call to my father. I think we were in our new house for nearly a week by the time I decided we should write a short letter and post it to his office. Carina didn't see the point to the letter.

'He'll find out eventually,' she said, while I sat on the bed next to her with a notepad balanced on my knees. She kept pulling the pad away from me, pretending she was joking, but I don't think she was, really. I think she wanted us to leave and never have any contact with him again.

But I felt like I needed to send it, so I persevered, finishing it while she was asleep. The funny thing is, I can't remember what I wrote. I agonised over the words, I wrote and rewrote those few short lines dozens of times before I sent it, but now I can't remember what they said. I seem to recall the inability to put anything real into it, and that when reading the final draft I thought it came across as cold and formal.

I couldn't imagine how to go about the alternative – how to write an honest letter, I mean – so I decided that I would leave it as it was. I rushed to post it first thing in the morning before Carina woke. When I pushed it through the slit of the postbox and heard it settle on top of the other letters, I felt lighter than I had ever felt before. I didn't skip back home or anything like that. I just noticed a difference in the way that I walked. I noticed there wasn't so much effort involved in the act of putting one foot in front of the other. I suppose I should have learned from that feeling. I suppose I should have wanted to grab on to it, take it even further, try and make a life where I could have felt like that every day.

I used to watch Friends back then, and laugh at how unlike reality the television programme was. Don't get me wrong, I was addicted to the show as much as any of the girls we lived with, but I used to wonder if I was watching it just because I wished our house-share was more like the show.

We didn't live with chummy housemates who shared meals and hung out drinking coffee together. It was lonely in the house, a lot of the time. People wrote their names on their food, and a pan left unwashed or a bar of chocolate gone missing could instigate a screaming match that went on for hours. If I wanted to study I did it on campus or during my break times at work. There wasn't the space for a desk in our bedroom, and the kitchen table was usually too messy to use.

The strangest thing to get used to was money. I realised that the summer hadn't been as difficult as we thought at the time. Then, we had been given enough money; we only had to eke it out towards the end of the summer because we had spent so much on nights out. In Dublin, no one was giving us money. Well, that's not strictly true. There was a bank account that I was given a card to when we first moved to the flat, but I hadn't used it from the day I got my first wage packet, because I knew that Carina would never forgive me.

It annoyed me that I was the one who had been given the card. I was the one whose name was on the account, and who was given the task of keeping receipts and phoning him with a rundown of how much we had spent and on what. I could see it: the future, me becoming just like the mothers, reporting every little thing to him, cowering if a penny was unaccounted for. In the end I didn't have to suffer even one of those interrogations, because of how soon we left the flat.

It wasn't easy when I couldn't afford to call Colm, and when I had to work such long hours just to squeeze into a tiny bedroom. To stop myself becoming tempted I cut up the ATM card and threw away any account details.

I didn't buy much that wasn't necessary, because I didn't have a lot of spare time – I was either at work, at a lecture, or studying – so I probably wouldn't have been too short of money had it not been for Carina. She got paid on a Thursday, and by Monday – my pay day – all of her money would be gone. She never asked me for money, and she was never behind with her rent or anything like that. It was just that I would see her going without lunch, or telling a friend she hadn't got the cash to go for a drink, and I would automatically force money into her hand.

I would joke that she couldn't afford to get any skinnier, but really I was hoping to keep her away from the many guys who were sniffing around. Buying Carina lunch, or dinner, or drinks, would have been just a way in for the sort of guys who were interested in her, or that was how I saw things.

There was one guy in particular who I worried about. His name was Liam Cunningham, but he called himself Liamo. He was constantly asking her out, saying, 'Let me show you a good time.' He really did use lines like that. Liam didn't work, but he was well-off and wore expensive clothes and had a flashy car, and I wanted to keep him as far away from Carina as I possibly could.

It wasn't an easy task, seeing as he rented a house on the same housing estate as ours. Every day he would call by to ask her out, or he would slow his car when he saw her walking somewhere, roll the window down and say something like, 'Hop in, Carrie darling, and I'll take you for the ride of your life.' When she refused he would go on with, 'Well, I'll be around whenever you're ready to succumb, beautiful.'

I felt that as long as she had enough money to spend, there would never be any reason for her to accept anything from Liam.

She did speak to Oisín, I know. For the first few weeks she spoke to him every day. I remember her talking on her phone with the window open wide, hanging her whole upper body out so that she could stare up at the sky. She called out the stars she could see, describing them in detail.

I don't know what Oisín said back to her – I suppose he told her the star names and the stories about them. Whatever it was he said, it always made her smile.

When the phone call ended she would go back out to the window, and look where she had been looking during their conversation. For a while the smile would stay on her face while I sneaked glances at her, but eventually it would fall away, and she would close the window, and go to bed with tears in her eyes.

They visited each other a couple of times in the first few weeks, but I know that as time went on they weren't able to afford to visit, or even talk on the phone as often as she would like. Instead of staying in and saving, though, she started spending more evenings out.

Sometimes she came into the bar where I worked, with an ever-widening circle of friends, but most of the time she was at parties. I went along, maybe once a week, if I had the night off. I just found myself bored. At parties, in lectures, at work... I was constantly bored.

Still I went along, always making sure she had enough money for drinks, always making sure that Liam Cunningham stayed far away from her. I heard him call me Carina's watchdog once. I couldn't think of anything smart to say back to him at the time. In truth, I remember feeling guilty, feeling like I wasn't worthy of the title.
Suspending Time

In November I visited Colm. It was one of those dark winter days when the sky seems like it might never brighten again. I felt ill the whole journey, worrying about Carina, wondering if I should have left her.

I was worried, too, about how things would go with Colm. Talking on the phone made everything confusing. If I had an evening when I got back from work early, it always seemed to be on an evening when he had to work late; if he called me during his lunch-break, I was usually in the middle of a lecture or else about to start a shift; conversations, therefore, were rushed. The times we did manage to speak, I could never tell from his tone if he was happy to hear from me or not.

As I took my small weekend bag from the shelf above me, I caught sight of him. He was standing on the footpath, his clothes and hair drenched by the rain as he watched the approach of the bus. He appeared anxious, but then he saw me as I moved along the aisle of the bus, and he smiled. It was the widest, happiest smile, and I knew then that he had missed me as much as I missed him.

On the way past my house I gazed in, wondering if the boys were home for the weekend or if they were still at their boarding school. I don't know if I understand it properly, even now, but I know from conversations with Carina that she felt this way too – that now we had broken free, we should never go back. I missed Graham and Michael, and she did too, but neither of us had made any attempt to stay in touch with our brothers.

When we got to the house Colm ran up to his room, telling me to follow in a couple of minutes.

When I went up I forgot about everything but him.

He was blowing out a match as I pushed open the door. He had arranged candles everywhere, and had shut the curtains to darken the room so that at first all I could see was the glow of the red and white tea-lights. He had freshly made his bed, and on his bedside table sat a bottle of Romanian red wine that I was crazy about back then. He had taken the whole weekend off work and, other than going to get food or going to the bathroom, we barely left his bedroom the whole time.

We didn't talk much. But it was a different silence, this time, to the one that had existed before I left for Dublin. I don't remember feeling the need to say a thing to him. The longest conversation we had was when we woke up on Saturday morning. He pulled me tightly to him and said, 'I've missed this, Viv. I've missed this so much.'

We both cried a bit in a quiet way, and I said, 'I can't run to your room, when I'm there. If things are getting me down, I can't just run to your room, lie on your bed and wait for you.'

He kissed my head, saying, 'I hope you always feel like that. I hope, no matter what happens, you'll always come back here. Because I'll always be waiting, Viv. You know that, don't you? No matter what happens, I'm yours.'

I wanted to suspend time. I wanted to pretend that there was nothing but this, that there were no lectures to go back to, no job to go back to, that there was nothing in the world but Colm and me.

I disappeared into fantasies again. There was Colm and me on our little farm, and everything was perfect. We would wake up at the sound of the cock crowing, and in the summer we would go to bed while it was still light.

He wanted to drive me all the way back to Dublin that Monday evening, but I couldn't bear the thought of dragging out the goodbye. I thought: if he does that, I'll wind up telling him to turn the van around; I'll wind up abandoning Carina.
Liamo

When I got back Carina was on her way out, and she was reluctant to tell me where she was going. I had to go straight to work, and while I was at the bar one of our housemates texted me to say there was a party in Liam Cunningham's house and everyone was invited. I hoped that it wasn't where Carina had gone.

My shift ended quite late that night because there was a bad fight at the bar. There were injuries inflicted with the help of bar stools and bottles – anything to hand, it seemed – and four people were taken away in ambulances. We had to wait for the gardaí before we could leave, so they could question all of us about the incident.

I had no idea who the brawlers were and I knew nothing about what had started the fight – I hadn't even seen any of it happen, because it had been in another section of the bar – but I still had to stay. It was a horrible night, and it made me miss Colm so much more.

I was back in fantasy land as I walked home. This time he was coming in after milking, and I was handing him a huge cooked breakfast. I knew it was old-fashioned – me, picturing myself as the little woman – but I couldn't help thinking that way. I was even wearing an apron. We were enjoying our imaginary breakfast and contemplating going upstairs for a quickie before we got on with the rest of our perfect day, when reality bullied its way back again.

As I turned into our housing estate I could see the lights and hear the music thumping from Liam Cunningham's house. I groaned. Over the course of the night at work I had forgotten about how Carina might be spending her evening. Now, I was thinking about how cagey she had been, and wondering if she was angry with me. Or worse, did she want me away from the house so that she could be with Liam without me watching?

I sat alone in our kitchen for a while, drinking hot chocolate and eating cornflakes. When it got to about five and she still wasn't home, I decided to go along.

Damian Meehan answered the door, with a, 'Oh thank Christ it's only you this time, Viv. We've had the guards here already. I mean, it's not like it's loud or anything.'

I raised an eyebrow as I walked past him. For five in the morning it was pretty loud, loud enough to make me think it would be all right to call in at five in the morning.

'Where's Carrie?' I asked.

Damian smirked. 'That's the question we're all asking,' he said. 'I reckon Liamo mighta finally worn her down.'

'Liamo,' I repeated, brushing past Damian without waiting for him to say any more. I couldn't stand Damian, in the same way I couldn't stand Liam: the tracksuits that cost a fortune, the shirts with the collars turned up...

As I got to the top of the staircase one of the bedroom doors was opening, and I saw Carina putting her jacket on as she emerged. Her eyes met mine for only a second before she looked at the ground.

'Didn't think you'd be here. Thought you'd be wrecked after work and being away for the weekend.'

I shrugged, wondering when going to visit Colm had become, 'away,' instead of 'home,' to her.

'You're right. I am wrecked. Dunno what the hell I was thinking, coming here in the first place. I'm going to head back.'

As I turned to go back down the stairs, she reached for me. 'Vivvy, wait,' she said. 'It's not what you think.'

I looked sadly at her. I couldn't help it; it was how I felt. I cried when I said, 'It's none of my business what you get up to behind Oisín's back.' The words came out sounding choked.

I took the stairs two at a time, but she kept up with me, keeping a hold of my arm as I rushed back to our house.

'I didn't sleep with him,' she said as I turned the key in the door.

'Really?' I asked, not able to hide how much it mattered to me. 'You didn't?'

I walked into the kitchen, moving more slowly than I had been, letting her keep up with me.

'I might as well have, though,' she said. 'I was going to. I don't even know why. Scratch that. I do know why. It's like with everyone I've been with. Except Oisín. Liamo just came up to me in the garden and put his arms on my shoulders like he had a right to, and then he kissed me and I... I just kissed him back. I have to tell him. I have to tell Oisín.'

I picked up my bowl from the table, just as something to do, I suppose, while I thought of what to say. Taking the bowl to the sink and rinsing out the soggy cornflakes gave me an excuse to keep my back to her. I tried to keep my voice calm and nonchalant, tried not to act like I thought it was the big deal that I knew it was.

'No. Don't tell him. You'll just ruin everything, and for what? A bit of a fool around with some posh twat who tries to make himself sound cool or whatever by calling himself Liamo. Fecking Liamo. Who does he think he is? He's from one of the poshest parts of Dublin _,_ Carrie. We've seen his folks' house at that party over Freshers' week. Liamo. What a... he is _not_ worth messing things up with Oisín for.'

'But I went to his _room,_ Vivvy. I... I let him put his hands on me and everything. Well, okay, you don't want to know the gory details but I think I would've gone the whole way, maybe, but the curtains were open, and he was going to draw them. Jesus, Vivvy, he'd pulled the bedclothes down and everything by this time, and I was just standing there like a... like I don't know what. Because it was about as passionate as kissing a kitten. I mean, I couldn't even figure out how we'd got there, how we'd got that far. We barely even kissed, out in the back garden, and he said, " _Do you want to go upstairs?"_ and I said, " _Okay"_ and then we just walked up, not even holding hands or anything, and then we went in and he pulled the bedclothes down and came back and started feeling me up, gawping at me while he did it with this stupid smug smile on his face like as if he'd known all along that I'd give in. It felt like... I wasn't even there, y'know. It wasn't even me who was going along with it. But I looked out. I looked out at the sky. And it was cloudy, and there was hardly a star in sight and I thought... I love Oisín so much. I almost let myself forget how it was before him, with people like Liamo. I have to tell him what I did.'

'Just sleep on it, please, Carrie,' I said, still not looking at her. I had finished with my bowl and had begun to wash everything that was in the sink. 'You're still drunk. You're slurring your words and everything. The last thing he needs is you drunk dialling to tell him something like this. Wait till –'

It was so quick, the way she turned me, reaching out to pull my arms from the sink and spinning me to face her. She just looked at me, for a moment, just stared, and I couldn't tell what was behind it – was it hate or was it just disappointment?

'You think I should keep it a secret,' she said. Her voice was toneless, and as she finished speaking she left the kitchen and went upstairs.

I couldn't bear to see her again that night, and our beds were so close together that I would have felt her breath as she slept, so I went into the living room and fell asleep on the couch.

≈

After that night – or morning, I suppose – Carina spent even less time with me. I knew she was drinking too much, but I didn't try and talk to her about it, I just went on with sleepwalking through college and work. Her phone calls to Oisín seemed to end, or at least she wasn't staying in and phoning him from our bedroom any more. The one time I approached her about it was when I was in town one Saturday morning. I went into the book shop when I knew she would be due to go on her break, and I asked her to have lunch with me. We went to the café upstairs in Eason's on O'Connell Street.

'Do you want a hot chocolate to go with your sandwich?'

She smiled and nodded. 'Without all that weird cream on top, though. Why do they put that stuff on? It makes me feel sick.'

She drank her hot chocolate but didn't eat much of her tuna sandwich. I was hungry though, and while I ate we didn't talk.

'Did you tell him?' I asked, once I was finished my food.

She shrugged. 'Not yet.'

'It's just... I've not heard you on the phone to him this past while.'

She shrugged again. 'Costs a fortune. Anyway I... I still think I might. Tell him. So.'

'Maybe you're right. I think he might understand. I think I was wrong, Carrie. What I said to you was wrong. I don't think you should keep it a secret. I do think he'd understand.'

As she looked at me her eyes were filling. 'He would. He would. But he'd still be sad. I'm not being vain about it, or saying I'm God's gift and he ought to be devastated, but... how it is with us... it'd hurt him. It'd hurt me, to think of him kissing someone else. And I just... I don't have the money to go visit him, for at least a couple of weeks. And he doesn't have the money to come here for at least as long. If I can't see his face when I tell him. And... and I miss his face, Vivvy. I can't tell him on the phone. It's easier not to talk on the phone, sometimes, because it physically _hurts_ when I have to hang up. But it's just another excuse, isn't it? Just another reason for me to chicken out of telling him.'

She looked like she might break into full-on crying, but she glanced at the time, stood up and sniffed back her tears, saying, 'I have to get back to work. Thanks for lunch.'
Last Days in Dublin

When I think about it all, I don't know how so much life was packed into just a couple of months. It was still November when I got the phone call from the Mater hospital to tell me that Carina had been admitted with alcohol poisoning.

It happened at a party in Stoneybatter, miles away from where we lived. I barely knew the girls hosting the party, but Carina was friendly with them. She had asked me to go with her but I couldn't swap my shift.

I asked her to spend the night at the bar instead, but she said the drinks were too expensive and she went off to the party. I felt happy, dumbly, thinking that if she was starting to worry about the price of drinks again, then maybe she was saving; maybe she was planning to spend some time with Oisín.

I was in bed, not long back from work and falling into a heavy sleep, when I got the call. It took me a few seconds to understand what I was being told, but as soon as it registered I called a taxi and threw on some clothes.

She had named me as her next-of-kin, and I didn't challenge the nurse who said, 'Vivienne? Oh, you're the sister, aren't you? Come this way.'

I followed her through the emergency room and stood quietly while she pulled a curtain open to reveal Carina, throwing up into a plastic bowl.

'She'll be like that for a while, poor thing,' said the nurse. 'It's just empty retching, now. We've already washed out her stomach.'

Carina looked up with a wry smile and patted her belly. 'Bright as a new pin.'

The nurse left us alone. After a few minutes more of being sick, Carina took my hand and looked at me.

'I thought it would be easier, being away from there,' she said. 'But it doesn't make a difference, Vivvy. I think I'm going round the bend. It's probably the same for Sarah, do you think? Should I try again – to track her down?'

I could have said yes, said we should both try to find Sarah. I could have told her things were almost, but not quite, the same for me. Like so many times before, I could have begun a conversation that would have made everything different, but I just held her, and let her cry.

She came home with me the day after, against the doctor's advice. She threw herself straight into work and college, and she didn't mention Sarah again.

What I did next is one of many things I regret. I don't know if it was triggered by Carina being in hospital, or if it was because of what I heard from Lucy Hanley when she walked into the bar during my afternoon shift.

Lucy was also studying at UCD, but we saw as little of her as we could. We knew she was living near us, and every now and then she would go out of her way to 'catch up.' That day she was smiling her all-knowing smile, and I knew she was bursting to tell me something. I pretended to be too busy to talk to her, going into the kitchen when there was really nothing much for me to do in there. Eventually a crowd arrived and I had to go out and serve at the bar. It was then that Lucy finally got her big news out, coming to sit on a stool in front of where I was pulling a pint.

'So it's all over, your daddy and his bit on the side.'

I shrugged, trying to hide my surprise. 'So what about it?'

'It's all a bit odd, though, isn't it? My dad says your dad's being really cagey about it all. But he spent at least one night on the office couch, and a few more in hotels. _And_ one of this woman's neighbours saw all your dad's clothes thrown on the front lawn.'

'And what about _you_ , Lucy?' I snapped. 'Isn't there any news about the fabulous life of Lucy Hanley?'

She pouted and brushed her hair out of her face. 'I was just trying to be nice, Viv. I thought you might need someone to talk to, that's all.'

'I don't,' I said, leaving the Guinness to settle and going to collect glasses. She glanced at me every few seconds, but she didn't try to talk to me again.

All I could think of, from that conversation on, was Colm. Everything was a blur, everything except for thoughts of him. The rest of my shift sped by, as things had for my last term at St Mary's. All I could do to calm myself was to think: Colm.

I went home after my shift and packed everything in a mad rush. All I wanted was to go, to go to him, but I knew I couldn't leave without telling Carina. I left an envelope for her, with money and a short letter that said nothing other than: ' _Just need to go see Colm and get my head straight for a while. I've left you enough to cover my rent and any extras. Will call you loads. Love, Vivvy.'_

I knew it wasn't enough. I knew I should talk to her. Her phone wasn't ringing, and I remembered that she had joined a drama group. I went along with my bags, but when I arrived they were mid-rehearsal.

I sat far back, behind some others who were watching. I don't know what the play was called. It was something that the students had written themselves. I don't know if they planned to perform it for a proper audience. It seemed a little bit preachy and naive to me, so maybe it was just something that had been put together as an exercise.

Carina, the newest member, had a small but important role. She was playing a girl who met the play's lead on a park bench, just as the lead was deciding what to do about an unplanned pregnancy.

The lead was a girl with dyed black hair and a lot of eye make-up. She looked a bit like Jennifer, I thought, without the warmth. It seemed to be going brilliantly. Carina was telling the lead of her own pregnancy, and how she had given the child up for adoption and had regretted it ever since.

Everyone watching was enraptured by Carina's speech. She was crying, but in a subtle way. It almost made me forget the whimpering cries of the lead. All I could do was keep my eyes on Carina, on how simply she spoke, on how heartbroken she seemed.

It took everyone a few seconds to notice that the lead was standing. She said, 'Jesus! Can't you say cut or stop or whatever the hell it is you should be saying, Derek? Isn't it your job as director to be able to tell when a scene just _isn't_ working?'

She said a few other things, but it was hard to pay attention to her. I felt irritated with her, like she had woken me up from a nice dream. It seemed to be the same for Derek the director, and for everyone watching, as we muzzily turned our attention from Carina to the lead.

Derek, a short guy with red hair and a fledgling beard, eventually walked onto the stage and began shouting at the lead. Soon it seemed that everyone except Carina was arguing. She stayed sitting on the bench, with the same look in her eyes as had been there when acting.

I glanced at my watch, realised I would miss my bus if I stayed any longer, and left the theatre, telling myself I would phone Carina later in the evening when she wasn't so busy.
The Slaughterhouse

I walked from the bus stop. I hadn't called him to say that I was coming. I didn't know what to say. I took the key from under the flowerpot to let myself into the house. Things slowed as soon as I went in and lay down on his bed. When he came home he didn't look surprised to see me there. He climbed onto the bed and put his arms around me with a happy smile.

I asked, 'Can I stay here, do you think? Like, for a few weeks maybe?'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Forever if you like.'

He organised a job for me straight away, working in the office of the slaughterhouse with his mother. I got along well with May. She was a good teacher and made it easy for me to understand the job.

Most people, even those who worked there, didn't call it a slaughterhouse. They said abattoir or meat processors, if they said anything. Most of the time they didn't refer directly to what they did, and odd replacement-words or gaps would appear in conversations.

We didn't see much of Colm at work. He took different break times and was over at the far side of the building. We only sometimes managed to arrange a few minutes together during the working day.

I worked in shipping, or as an office junior, or as whatever they felt like asking me to do at any particular time. I spent most of each day sitting behind a window with a computer on one side of me and a printer on the other, printing out sheets for the drivers to take along with them to wherever they were delivering the meat. For the first few days I would hear the sound of the dot-matrix printer in my dreams, chugging along, taking an age to produce the delivery sheets.

Almost everyone who worked with me smoked, even sitting at their desks. For a while I considered taking up the habit, thinking I might cough a little less that way, but just one sneaky inhalation of one of May's cigarettes was enough to put me off smoking for life.

The smoke in the office did have some benefits. If you went into any of the 'production' areas, or the packing area, people weren't allowed to smoke. Those parts of the building smelled so much worse than the sections where you _could_ smoke. The clinging of the cigarette smoke in the office areas almost – but not quite – masked the stench.

After a while the smell of blood no longer made me feel sick, and I got used to seeing men with red smears on their white clothing.

The delivery drivers I dealt with were chatty at first – probably overly so – until I told them I was living with Colm. After that they were just polite and didn't bother me, apart from one man called Sean.

Sean was at least in his late forties, possibly his early fifties. He tried – and failed – to dress like a younger man. His belly was too large, and his physique too flaccid, for the tight jeans and T-shirts he wore. His hair was so black that it must have been dyed. He would come into the office when he knew no one else was around. He constantly offered me lifts home and invited me to 'come and check out' his car, as if his car was something special.

'It's the sports model,' he would say. 'I could take you for a spin, see how fast you like to go.'

He would say that same line over and over again, reminding me of an older and poorer Liam Cunningham. It was as if he thought I hadn't heard him, and that surely, once I did, I would react appropriately.

At first I tried to ignore it altogether, and when that made no difference I tried insincere laughter. He still didn't stop saying the line, though. Every day I was supposed to laugh on cue. I don't know why – he was probably just an average man – but there was something about him that unsettled me, making me afraid to tell him to go to hell.

It was affecting me even at home. I didn't want the weekends to end. I didn't want to get up in the morning because it meant going to work, and having to put up with Sean. I would get up later and later each day, almost making May and myself late more than once.

I began to hate Sean, because he was ruining what was supposed to be my perfect time, my happy time, my life with Colm.

For a few days I swapped breaks with May so that I wouldn't be in the room when Sean arrived, but he must have figured out what I was doing, because on the fourth day he came into the canteen and headed straight for my table. He pulled his chair really close to me and said, 'Hello my flower.'

I don't know why those words made me shiver – I suppose it was the way he said it more than what he said – but I spilled some of my coffee.

He laughed and said, 'I make you nervous, don't I? You know what that means, don't you, Vivienne? Your heart beats faster when you see me, your pretty little palms start to sweat.'

I ignored him and looked around the room, wishing it was busier, wishing I could see someone I knew.

'It's a bit different for me, though,' he said, putting his hand over mine. 'Do you want to feel what you do to me?'

I snatched my hand away and rushed out of the room, my face hot, my eyes stinging. I was annoyed with myself for not shouting at him, for not saying anything to anybody. I was just at the door to the ladies' room when a hand reached around my waist. I made an odd-sounding cry of fright.

'Jesus, Viv,' said Colm, pulling his hand away and looking ashen.

Even though I was relieved to hear his voice, my breathing hadn't quite calmed as I turned to face him.

'Hey, what's wrong? What's happened?'

All around us the corridors were filling, because the second break time was beginning, and everyone was looking at me while I tried not to cry.

'It's just stupid,' I said. 'I'm just being an idiot.'

He put his hands on my face around that time, I remember. His hands were so big, and so warm, and he held my face, trying to look into my eyes as he said, 'It's not stupid if it's got you this upset, is it? Come on Viv, tell me what's up.'

He stroked my cheekbone with his thumb, wiping away a tear, and something about the action made me meet his eyes.

'It's just Sean,' I said. 'You'll only say I'm overreacting.'

I told him everything, and when I got to the end I expected him to shake his head and laugh and tell me I was being an idiot. I don't know why I thought that, because it was something that Colm would never have done.

He stroked my face again and parted from me. He stood for a second with his hand on his chin as his expression grew angrier. When he pushed at the door of the canteen it wasn't with much force, and I didn't know whether to follow him or not. I couldn't tell if he was walking away from me to give himself space to think or... I didn't know. I didn't know what he was going to do.

I walked slowly after him, frightened. I could see Sean standing at the smoking side of the canteen, lighting a cigarette. Colm didn't dash at him. As with the way he pushed the door, his movements were calm.

When he neared Sean he said, loud and clear enough for me to hear, 'Been tryin' it on with Viv, have you?'

Sean glanced at him and glanced away, laughing and shaking his head, saying to the other men, 'What's he goin' on about? Mad yolk.'

The others weren't laughing along with Sean. They began to move away from him, while Colm went on with, 'You think you can get away with that? You think she wants to hear that from a fat oul' shite like you? One more word, do you hear me? You don't look at her, you don't talk to her, you don't go anywhere near her.'

Everyone was watching by then, so maybe Sean felt that he had no choice but to react. He smirked and looked as much at me as at Colm while he said, 'Sure, she needs a real man, not some farm boy who doesn't know what he's doing. You can tell just by looking at that girl that she's aching for it.'

For a second I thought Colm was too stunned to do or say anything more. His face went pale. There was a twitch – just the barest, almost imperceptible twitch – of his fist before he swung. The swiftness shocked me. The strength of it shocked me. The punch knocked Sean off his feet and sent him flailing backwards onto the tiles.

Everyone gawped as Sean stood. Mostly there were quiet sniggers, but there were one or two outright laughs. Sean looked at Colm and said with an unconvincing voice, 'You should be careful, youngfella. I could kill you with one swipe.'

Colm raised an eyebrow and, with a cold smile, said, 'C'mon, so.'

Sean shook his head. He was already walking out of the canteen when he managed to say, 'You wouldn't be able to handle it.'

Colm followed, saying, 'Well? C'mon, so.'

We all went along with Colm, following Sean as he dashed through the front doors and to his car. I wanted his car to act up. I wanted it so much. In my mind I pictured him, desperately trying to get it going while the engine stuttered. But it started immediately.

He didn't say anything as he drove away despite the fact that, by then, dozens of men were taunting him and the girls had all begun to laugh. For a few minutes after he left, everyone stayed in the car park. The men slapped Colm on the back. Some of the girls came over to me and said what a creep Sean was, and how they were delighted with what Colm had done. There were jokes about how I was going to reward him for his chivalry, and it wasn't until one of the managers came outside that we all drifted back to where we were supposed to be.

I don't know what I expected to happen after that break time. There were no complaints about what Colm had done. No one from management, no one from human resources, ever said a thing. Work just went on as before. The only difference was that Sean didn't return.
Home

Time went by without anything really happening, or that's probably how it would have looked. We went to work, we went home, we ate food and went to bed. But every day I woke up happy, and every night I went to sleep satisfied.

On the evenings when Colm was at the hotel, I watched TV with May and Davey. Mr Barry was away most of the time, although none of us knew where. There was a definite feeling of lightness on the days he was gone.

I spent time making meals or doing things around the house or the farm – though there was less to do at the farm with each day that passed.

I tried to give May money, and for the first while she wouldn't take anything from me. If I filled the fridge with food she would try to give _me_ money. It wasn't until I threatened to pay bills behind her back that she finally relented. When she did give in, she cried and squeezed my hand.

'It's just rent,' I said, embarrassed. 'It's no big deal.'

She sighed. 'I suppose. I'd just rather I didn't need it.'

I called Carina every other day, but she rarely answered the phone. When she did, she was always on her way somewhere or in the middle of something. The most she ever said was that she was, 'doing fine.'

There was one day in mid-December that stands out in memory. It was a Saturday, and Colm was giving me a driving lesson in the van. On our way back I was driving slowly and nervously, because the lane was narrow. The seat in the van was high, and the deciduous trees had died back so that I could see too much of the changes happening at my old house.

My father's car was in the driveway. It was parked neatly next to the mothers' Fiesta. At the front of the house, in the formal dining room, the blinds were up and the room was brightly lit.

We couldn't see the faces clearly from such a distance, but we could see the silhouettes of five figures at the table. I made out, judging by the shapes, that the mothers and the brothers were sitting at either side and my father was sitting at the head.

The van stalled. It was my third or fourth time driving, and I was panicking. What if they heard the noise? What if they came out to see what was going on?

I tried and tried, but I couldn't restart the van, and Colm got out and came around to my side. He'd never been angry on a driving lesson, not once, but his face was livid as he opened my door, saying, 'Get out. I'll drive the rest of the way.'

I switched seats with him, saying nothing.

Colm's jaw was hard, and he didn't speak to me until we turned onto the farm. He stopped the van, halfway through the turn, and looked at me. 'Why's he back?'

'I didn't know about it,' I told him. 'I swear.'

He rolled his eyes and banged his head back against his headrest, at least half a dozen times, over and over. Then he stopped, and drove into the yard.

≈

I hadn't looked forward to Christmas since I was really young, but that year I couldn't wait. I went into Cavan with Jennifer and Susan and spent a fortune on presents for Colm. I bought him books and CDs and cologne and silly little knick-knacks. I couldn't help myself. Every shop I went into I saw something else I thought he'd like. Jennifer and Susan were laughing at me, rolling their eyes and teasing me the whole time, but I didn't care. I was giddy. I was excited.

In the Barry house, May always liked to wait until just a few days before Christmas to put up the tree and the decorations. She said that it made those few days more special. The tree smelled fresher and looked better. It wouldn't droop before Christmas day or have lost all of its needles. Colm and I planned to cut down a tree ourselves, from the farm. We got all dressed up in our warmest clothes and went out to start the van.

'Oh,' he said, his face falling.

'Your dad must have taken it.'

He looked across the land, to the forested section. 'We'll have to find his car keys. Unless the reason he's taken my van and left the car is because his heap's gone and broken down again.'

'What about a tractor or something?'

He laughed dryly. 'I forgot you weren't here for that. Few weeks ago. Fun for all the family, so it was, watching stuff get repossessed. Hopefully that's not where the van's gone. Nah. Couldn't be. It doesn't belong to him, or to the farm. Feck him, anyway. We'll just get on with it, for now.'

'You mean we could just drag the tree ourselves?'

He shrugged. 'We might have to. We'll look for his keys first. We can hitch the trailer to the back of his car and carry the tree that way.'

We searched the house and the caravan, but the keys were nowhere to be found. No one knew where Mr Barry was, or when he would be back. To cheer us up Mrs Barry made Irish coffees and we listened to a CD I had bought, a compilation of Christmas songs. We sang at the tops of our voices to _I_ _Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day_ and _Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer_. Even Davey joined in, after his mother had let him drink an Irish coffee. We took out the decorations and put up everything that we could, but all of us kept looking at the fairy lights and baubles, wishing we had a tree.

It was almost three when Colm said, 'Feck it, we'll just drag it back ourselves like you said, Viv. Davey, you can give us a hand.'

I lost a glove somewhere along the way. Davey and I took turns carrying the back end of the tree, and I remember how even cutting my bare hand on the bark couldn't dampen my mood. Davey and Colm kept trying to give me their gloves, but the fingers were too long, and I couldn't keep a grip on the trunk.

There was no snow yet, but when we opened our mouths to breathe out, we made little warm fogs in the air.

'When me and Carina were kids we had this idea that smoking was really cool, really grown up, so on days like this we'd pretend that we were smoking, and that the foggy breath was our cigarette smoke.'

Davey laughed. 'Me and Colm used to do that too.'

'Yeah,' said Colm. 'We thought we were the business, didn't we Davey? Will we put it up in the good sitting room or the kitchen?'

Davey, who had his hands free at the time, surveyed the tree. 'Don't reckon it'll fit the kitchen unless we give it a trim. Got to be the good sitting room.'

By the time we got back it was almost five, and we saw the post van drive away.

We dropped the tree outside and went in through the kitchen to get the keys for the French doors. As soon as she saw us Mrs Barry shoved an envelope into the pocket of her cardigan.

'What's that? Why are you hiding that?' Davey asked.

May shook her head. 'It's nothing. Just the usual.'

'Well give it here, then.' Colm approached her, holding out his hand.

Mrs Barry took a deep pull on her cigarette, and handed him the letter.

While he read, his lips moved slightly. Part of me wanted to smile at how adorable he looked when he read that way, but I resisted. His face grew dark, and he handed the letter to Davey.

'Why won't you let me give you what I've saved? I've near enough to clear the arrears. We could get the bloody tractor back, at least.'

'No! No, Colm!' cried Mrs Barry. 'This isn't your mess. I've told you before and I'll tell you again, you're not to waste a penny more of your money or a second more of your time on this place. This is his mess. I don't even...' She sat down, shaking her head, putting out one cigarette and lighting another. 'I don't even mind that I'll have nothing by the time I'm rid of him. You'll have your savings. You can start again and that's all that matters to me.'

'But Mam –'

'No buts, son. He's driven this place so far into the ground. You pay off this latest loan and what? There's nothing _left_ of the place. Only debt. That's all you'll have, your whole life, if you throw your shirt into this place. A few months' time and it's gone. Accept it.'

Davey handed the letter to me, although I don't know why. I had such a strong sense of privacy still, and I handed it back to May without taking a glance. As I sat next to her she lit another cigarette. We both watched Colm as he stormed out of the kitchen.

He must have picked up the axe we'd left outside next to the tree and flung it, because we saw it flying through the air. I watched it soar against the sky, almost reaching the forest from where we had cut the tree.

'He loves this place,' I said.

'I know. And it breaks my heart. Because I love it too. I often think... I often think it was this place I fell in love with, and not their father. He'd taken me out a couple of times and I wasn't that impressed with the way he went on. Then, third time out, he took me back here to meet his father – an oul bastard, he was, and dying at the time – and after that I thought I started to see something in him. But it wasn't him at all I was mad about, only this place.'

Davey shook his head and left the room.

'It's true, though,' she went on, as we heard his footsteps running up the stairs, and his bedroom door slamming. 'I thought I could be happy here. And I was. I just trusted everything to him and got on with bringing up the boys. If I'd've known back then about the loans he was taking out... I'd've done something. Left him, taken what I could, or run him as far away from this place as I could while there was still something left. But by the time I opened my eyes it was too late.' She stubbed out her cigarette. 'There's nothing left to salvage. The bank own every inch of it, and they're all out of patience. Oh well.' She stood. 'Onwards and upwards. We'll get this tree inside, will we?'

≈

Later that evening I was lying on the couch watching TV when a knock came at the front door. May was taking a bath, Davey had gone out, and Colm was at the hotel. I felt a shiver as I went to answer.

Michael didn't wait for me to say hello. He started talking, almost shouting, as soon as I drew the door back.

'I thought Davey Barry was taking the mick when he said you were living here. But then I saw you in his brother's van. So, you're living here? Seriously? Why aren't you up in college?'

For a moment I just looked at him. The gaps had grown longer between the times I saw Graham or Michael, and each time they had grown by inches, and their faces looked more like my father's.

'Is he back?'

Michael shrugged. 'Seems like it. They've not really said but... yeah. Seems like it.'

'You can phone me whenever you like, Mikey, and while you're on school holidays you can come here. But I won't go to that house.'

He sighed. 'I miss how it was when we were younger. When we didn't know any better. You and Carrie making us soup and playing board games.'

'Do you – what do you remember, from when we were younger? Do you actually think it's all right to just act like it was normal? It's not fair to Carina or Sarah. To any of us.'

Michael's face grew hard. 'What are you on about? I just mean I miss you and Carrie, that's all.'

'But it's not _right_ , Mikey. Tell me I'm not going mad here.'

Michael shook his head. 'Stop being a drama queen, will you? What the hell's normal, anyway? Just come home and see us for Christmas, Viv. And go back to college, will you? All the money Dad spends on our education and you just go and throw it all away. You're too good to waste your life on a loser like Colm Barry.'

I opened my mouth, but I was too angry to retort. I was looking at his back by the time I thought of something to say.

### Christmas Eve

The days until Christmas Eve passed slowly. We didn't see Mr Barry again. When we woke on the morning of Christmas Eve his car was gone, and the van had been returned with a huge dent on the driver's side.

'Why am I not surprised?' Colm kicked the air. 'I'll have to pay for this now. He knows I don't own the van. He knows it's the hotel's. Gareth was about to report it stolen.'

'Well... Gareth knows what your dad's like, doesn't he? So he won't blame you. And at least you won't have to walk to the hotel in this weather.'

He squeezed my hand. 'That's something to be happy about, I suppose.'

'And maybe you'll get back in time for dinner? Me and your mam are going to be cooking up a storm.'

'I wouldn't miss it for the world. I'm only waiting tables at lunch – last minute shoppers always pop in for a bit, according to Gareth. Might have to do a bit of that myself, when my shift's over.' He smiled slyly. 'Maybe there's something I have put by, under a counter in a little shop in town, ready to be picked up this afternoon.'

He kissed me and the cold disappeared. As he climbed into the van he said, 'If my dad comes back, ring me at the hotel.'

I stood with my hands on the door while he started the van and rolled down the window. 'Try and have a good day,' I told him.

He laughed when I said that, but it was a crazy sort of laugh, an end of the tether kind of laugh. When he stopped, he kissed the top of my head. 'I'm glad I have you,' he said before rolling the window up and driving away.

≈

I was holding the ham, about to plunge it into a bucket full of water, when my phone beeped.

'I'll take over, love,' said May. 'Here – have a sniff of my biccies before you go.'

She nodded her head to the tray she'd just taken from the oven, and my mouth watered. She had baked star- and snowflake-shaped biscuits, and I stood over them inhaling cinnamon and sugar.

'Smells like Christmas,' I said, grinning, while I washed the ham off my hands.

My jacket was hanging on the back of the kitchen door, and as I went to get my phone out of the pocket I saw, through the glass pane at the top of the door, that snow had begun to fall. I was smiling, I remember, as I grabbed the phone. But I think that my face must have fallen as I read the text message, because May asked, 'Are you okay, love? You've gone a bit pale.'

'I'm... yeah. It's from Carrie. She says – she says she's at home.'

May looked at me oddly. 'Well, that's nice. Isn't it? You must miss her. God, I remember the two of ye as little ones, little blonde heads running everywhere together. Peas in a pod.'

'Yeah.' My voice was hollow. 'Will you be all right for a while if I go and see her?'

'Of course I will. Y'know... she's welcome here, same as you. If it... well, if it doesn't work out at your house, she can stay here. You know that, don't you love? There's room here for you both.'

I nodded, trying not to cry at the kindness of her words as I threw on my jacket and went out through the back door.

I read the text message again and again while I walked. I hadn't told May exactly what it said, and no matter how many times I read the words I couldn't believe they were real.

' _I'm at our house. I can't stand it anymore. I need to make them talk to me properly or I don't know what I'll do.'_

When I opened the gate and walked toward the house I wasn't surprised to see that his car was still there.

As I got closer I could see into the living room, where the boys were watching television with him. All three of them were laughing so loud that I could hear it, even outside. I let myself in and walked straight through to the kitchen. The room smelled of spices. Carina was sitting at the table with the mothers, drinking red wine. I saw then what they were doing, the three of them: they were sticking cloves into oranges.

'Merry Crimbo,' said Carina with a glassy smile. 'Glad you made it. Now you can sit down and play happy families with the rest of us.'

My mother fixed her with a stare, but said nothing.

'Pull up a pew,' Therese said, her voice slurring as she poured me a glass of wine. It was already there on the table – the fourth glass – as if they were expecting me. 'We're stringing popcorn next.'

'And be sure to savour every sip,' said Carina. 'I mean wine, with _him_ here. That's a sign something's changed, isn't it Vivvy? He must be a new man.'

I ignored the drink and picked up an orange and a handful of cloves. 'You normally do the decorations weeks before now.'

'Probably didn't feel Christmassy yet. Didn't feel warmed by the Christmas spirit till we were all here, all together, just the way it should be. Except Sarah. Where _is_ Sarah, Pauline?'

There was no reply, so Carina filled the silence, laughing loudly. 'Sorry, did I say something offensive? Did you hate her as much as you hate me? Silly, really. You learned to get along with Therese eventually, didn't you? Sarah was prettier though, I suppose. Probably not so much, now she's a bit long in the tooth.'

'I could do with a coffee. Anyone want a coffee?' I said, standing. 'If we're going to have this talk, the three of you should at least sober up.'

They said nothing, acting as if I wasn't there, as if I hadn't just spoken. I _felt_ like I wasn't in the room. I felt like the three of them were having some silent conversation, the way they kept looking at one another with raised eyebrows, the way they turned in unison to look at the door that led to the hallway.

I followed the line of their eyes and saw something that almost made me drop the mug I had just picked up. The office door was closed. I had walked by it, not looking, not thinking, intent on reaching the kitchen and seeing Carina. I looked into the little box on the windowsill, and the keys stared back at me.

'Nothing will ever change, will it?' I asked.

For a few seconds they continued to ignore me and kept sticking cloves into oranges.

'You don't even live here any more,' said my mother after a while. 'You can't pick and choose when to get involved. You're in, or you're out.'

I looked at Carina. 'And it doesn't bother anyone that he's just... _back?'_

'Why should it, Vivvy?' Carina asked. 'Why should Daddy McEvoy ruling the roost again in his own home bother anyone? Tell me. Why?'

'Stop it, love.' Therese drained her glass and reached for the bottle. 'Just stop it. We're trying to have a nice Christmas.'

Carina's chin went into the air as she glared at Therese and threw her orange down. It bounced along the floor and stopped at my feet and I don't know why, but I picked it up and breathed in the warm smell.

'Love?' She kept glaring at Therese as she stood up, pulling her jacket and scarf from the back of her chair and awkwardly putting them on. 'Love, you call me? Fuck you, Therese.'

None of us turned to watch Carina go.

'You should have stayed in Dublin,' Pauline told me as the back door slammed. 'Your father put you in that flat so you could keep an eye on her.'

'What did you all talk about before I got here?'

They looked at each other. Once again, I wasn't in the room. I wanted to cross the floor and... I don't know. I don't know. Violent thoughts came, fleetingly, but mostly I felt hopeless, useless. Mostly I wondered _what_ I could say that would make them acknowledge me. Acknowledge Carina. Acknowledge Sarah. Acknowledge themselves.

I went out through the back door, and I knew they didn't look up as I went, just as they had not watched Carina leave. I knew that they had closed themselves to us a long time ago.

Once out of the house I walked off the property and onto the lane. I don't think I was looking for Carina. I think I just didn't know what else to do. Colm would probably be back from work, but I couldn't go to the farm. Not until I'd formed my thoughts, not until I knew how to say what none of my family would say.

I had no money, no hat, no gloves, and I found myself walking to the other end of the town, shivering, wishing I would let myself call in to Jennifer's or Susan's, or even Paddy's, to get warm for a while. Through windows I could see brightly lit living rooms, and people sitting by fires with drinks in their hands, and it was making me think too much.

Early Christmases came into my memory, Christmas Eves when I watched them leave, knowing they would be back in the morning, knowing to pretend they never went away in the first place.

I had my tongue between my teeth as I walked, and I can still feel it now when I think if it – how I bit down, how I drew blood and tasted it in my mouth, because I actually thought I could force myself to _stop_ remembering. Years and years of trying not to see, of trying not to remember. But it was there, it was all there in a stream of images that I could not shove out of my mind.

Happy Christmas to who? Who the hell was I kidding, when I asked for my doll houses, my plastic ponies, my stupid toys? Who the hell was Therese kidding when she played Christmas songs and put five different types of lights on the tree?

We unwrapped presents, we ate turkey and ham. Pauline cooked those meals like she was preparing a feast for kings and queens. We watched bad films. We stuffed our faces with selection boxes. We pulled crackers and read out jokes and sat there with stupid paper hats on our heads acting like it was the most wonderful time of the year.

We didn't turn around. We didn't turn away from the TV screen. We didn't look up from our presents, or our food. We didn't pay any attention to who was and wasn't in the room.

I suppose I must have started crying as I walked, because when Oisín tapped me on the arm I couldn't see him properly. I had to slow down, and wipe my eyes, and shake my head before I recognised him.

He had a carrier bag with him and he fell into step beside me. 'Are you all right?'

I nodded. 'Just – yeah. Yeah. Just a dumb girly moment. Good to see you, Oish. Merry Christmas.'

He beamed. 'Isn't it? Can you believe the snow? I think it was like this once back when I was a kid, but I've not seen it like this for years. Is Carrie home? Jesus, it feels like so long since I've seen her.' He lifted his carrier bag and opened it so that I could look in. It was filled with beautifully wrapped presents, all tied with bows.

'I couldn't decide, so I got her mostly books. Ones I know she'll love, though. Like, ages ago I had this library book with photos of nebulae that she loved, and we photocopied almost the whole thing, so I've bought her a brand new copy of that.'

I smiled. 'She's been obsessed with nebulae since she met you. She has those photocopies pinned up in her room in Dublin.'

'Oh, and I found this old copy of Winnie-the-Pooh in a shop in Cork, because I remembered how she said her one got wrecked with some paint stripper or something.'

I nodded. 'That's right. She lost most of her books. Lost. Why am I saying lost? That was... that was really shitty, what happened.'

Oisín went quiet for a while, and then he said, 'Is she all right though? I mean... I haven't heard from her as much. I know we're both too broke to get to travel up and down as much as we'd like but... I miss her. I've been trying to get her on the phone all day but I guess it's turned off. She's not... she's not trying to give me the message, is she? Am I being a bit of an idiot here? Like, will she be happy to see me?'

'Oh God, Oisín,' I said, grabbing his arm. 'She will be so happy to see you. I think she could do with it, to be honest. Are you –' I realised we were already at the beginning of our lane. 'You're... you're knocking in to her, then?'

'Is that all right?'

'Only, she went out a little while ago and I don't know if she'll be back by now.'

I don't know if I expected him to turn around and go home, but he kept walking beside me. It was getting almost too dark to see very well, and I was glad that he couldn't see how nervous I was. The summer we spent alone in the house probably misled Oisín. He couldn't know that no one ever came around when my father or the mothers were there.

I didn't know what would happen, if they'd even let him into the house, but I kept walking, with my head down like I was trying to charge through the air, through the cold. Because Carina needed Oisín. I was going to take him to our house, and look for Carina, because she needed him more than anything. That's all that I can remember of my thoughts for those few minutes as we drew nearer to the house. A mantra: Carina needs Oisín.

And I needed him, then. When I saw the gate and I grew frightened, I needed him. I needed to speak to him, to talk to him, to tell him things. I wondered what Carina had told him. I wondered if he knew what was wrong. But I couldn't get the words to come out of my mouth.

Instead I said, 'Our dad's back,' as I clung to the gate. 'Before you come in, you should know that our dad's back. You should know that things are a bit...'

He had his hand on the latch beside mine. He was wearing green woollen gloves, and his hand felt warm.

'Is he living here again or is it just for Christmas?'

'I don't know. They wouldn't say. They don't really tell us things. It looks like it might be for good. Carrie's... it's a bit of a shock for her. She only got back today.'

The way he looked at me then told me that he knew at least as much as I did. Probably more. He would have listened, when she told him things. I knew that so clearly, that Christmas Eve. Oisín would have let Carina talk. Oisín would have let Carina tell.

'You're at Colm's, aren't you?'

I nodded.

'Good. Carrie's got to get out of here as well. She can stay at mine. It's not right, him being here. And once we're at mine, we'll – we'll bloody well _do_ something, Viv. All right? We'll all sit down and we'll... do something. It's not right.'

'No. No it's not,' I said. We took our hands off the latch, pushed the gate open, and walked to the house.
Little Lake

Through the window I could see that the boys were still in the living room, but I couldn't see my father. Oisín followed me through the front door and into the kitchen. I didn't introduce him. I felt this panic, this urgency to grab Carina and get out of the house. Everything had hit me, finally, that's the way I felt. Everything was clear and un-ignorable, and I couldn't stop crying. I just couldn't stop crying.

'Has she come back?' I asked.

Pauline shrugged. 'Not that I've noticed.'

'Where's Dad?'

Pauline shrugged again. 'Is he not in the front room?'

'No, he's not in the fucking front room!' I shouted, while Oisín gently squeezed my arm.

'You'll have to excuse Vivienne's language,' said Therese. 'I'm thinking, looking at you – dark hair, nice build – well, you can only be Oisín, can't you? He who the whole town's been talking about. Oisín and Carina, the latest love story. Is it the same for your poor mammy, Oisín? Does she have to hear about your latest crush through the town tattle?'

Oisín looked from me to Therese without saying a word.

I started to search the house. In the living room the brothers barely glanced up from the television when I asked if they had seen her. Michael shook his head and grunted while Graham mumbled, 'Nah, not seen her. She here?'

After that I went into every single upstairs room and Oisín came after me even though he knew, like I knew, that she wasn't there. We had to look, I suppose. We had to do something.

When we had searched almost everywhere I ran downstairs and tried the office door. It was locked. I kicked at it but the wood was so thick it didn't splinter. It only hurt my foot. The mothers looked up every now and then from their popcorn stringing, and didn't comment. I ran out then, through the back door. I think I sensed Oisín looking back at the mothers, but he stayed close behind me as I ran.

'She used to fight tooth and nail for me,' I said. 'In school they used to call us freaks. And worse. And that's what I want to know, actually, y'know – if they really thought that, if they thought even a little bit of what was said about us was true, then why did they _laugh_ at us, and slag us off, and treat us like we were just some big joke? And it was me, more than her. They'd start on me more than her, probably because she would talk back, and she would fight back, and they knew that, so they went for the soft option. But she'd fight for me. She'd stick up for me as much as she'd stick up for herself. She'd drag people off me. She'd slap Susan or Paddy or whoever it happened to be that week right across the head if they said anything about me, or about Sarah, or about our brothers.'

I spoke quickly, I remember, the words coming out in a jumble while I walked along the path that led around the lake. Oisín was hurrying after me, still carrying his bag of presents. I looked back at him to warn him to watch his footing at one point, because part of the path was icy, and all I could see was his green-gloved hand, clutching his carrier bag of presents.

After a while we heard the voices of my father and Carina coming from the gazebo. When we turned the bend and it was finally in view, I stopped, dead still, with my hands covering my eyes.

You block things. It's said so much, and I don't know if others believe or disbelieve, but you truly block things. When it's a choice between horror or nothing, you choose nothing.

But that night I could not forget. That night _wasn't_ that night. I wasn't covering my eyes because Carina was leaning against the rail, talking to my father. I was pointlessly, desperately covering my eyes because they were seeing the past.

I was watching her on the gazebo, on a spring day twelve years before. I was looking at how the sunshine made her hair golden. I was looking at the trees that grew thick around the lake. I was seeing the way she turned, with eyes full of mischief, when she first felt his stare. He was the pirate, that's what she said that day. If he wanted to play, then he could be the pirate, and I would have to save her.

I felt Oisín reach up and touch my hands. I stopped covering my eyes and let him lead me forward. I don't know when or why, but the mothers had followed us. They hadn't even put coats on, and they were walking towards the bank where we were standing. They moved slowly, or maybe that's just how it seemed at the time.

I looked out then, at his boat, back on the lake, tied together with the little rowing boat at the gazebo. I turned back to the mothers accusingly. They must have heard the engine of his boat as he drove it out there. They could have told me that.

Carina and my father didn't see us at first. Carina had her back turned to us, and to him, and whatever he was saying must have been upsetting her because I could see the way her hands clutched at the rail, and the way she was pushing against it, even kicking her knee against it every few seconds.

Oisín began to say something, but I can't recall how his sentence began because we heard a cry, all of us, and he stopped speaking. It sounded like the cry you make when you miss the bottom step, or trip over a bump.

We all stared as the rail began to break away.

She must have felt it move, I suppose, and cried because of that. She tried to step back, but I don't know if it was because she didn't move quickly enough, or because she slipped, but all we could see was her body lurching forward in a way that seemed so awkward, so unworthy of Carina's grace, as the rail collapsed into the water and her body fell in along with it. Her arms flailed, and she managed to grab onto one of the posts that the gazebo rested upon. I heard Oisín breathe out at that moment.

I think it might have been all right, had my father just let her climb back up, but he reached his arm out and tried to grab hold of her. She recoiled violently, and the movement caused her hands to slip from the post. At first I thought that she was all right. She was there, in the water, close to the post. But I couldn't see her hands taking hold, and I didn't understand. Her arms were moving, close to her throat.

I looked more closely, and saw: her scarf had caught on the splintered wood left behind when the rail had detached from the post, and she was trying to disentangle herself. Her hands were still pulling at it when the gazebo began to lilt. The wood was creaking, straining, giving in to rot, and as the post finally gave way Carina's scarf came free and she fell back into the water.

The splash that she made was barely audible, such a small sound in comparison to the great moan of the breaking wood. For a few moments I thought I would see her rise back above, holding on to the broken post, using it as a float, but I watched as piece after piece of wood bobbed to the surface with no one holding on. But she was a strong swimmer. After years playing at the lake together, we both were. Any second she would appear, swimming around to the other side of the gazebo, hoisting herself into the rowing boat. Any second.

I turned my gaze to my father, wondering: why wasn't he doing anything? He was so close to where she went in. Why wasn't he doing anything?

Oisín didn't watch, or wait, or waste any more time. He started to untie his shoes. I could only see him out of the corner of my eye, because I was still looking at what was left of the gazebo, glaring at my father. He was balancing at the edge, looking down into the water, while Oisín stripped off his shoes and jacket and shouted to him, 'Well, go in, will you! What are you waiting for?'

My head swivelled from my father to Oisín. I took off my shoes and my coat and followed him into the water. I had been swimming for a few seconds when I heard a third splash, and for a second I hoped it was Carina resurfacing, but it was my father diving in.

I ducked back under. It was dark beneath the water, and so cold, but I kept swimming. At one point when I came up for air, I saw the mothers running back from the house with a torch. Graham and Michael were with them.

I swam out to the gazebo and underneath it, reaching my hands out in front of me and all around me to try and feel for her, but all I felt was thick, slimy water, and pieces of the rotten splintered wood that had broken away. I couldn't keep a grip on any of the remaining posts when I tried to take a short rest.

I looked over at Therese. She was standing on the bank with a torch, shining it onto the water. I wanted to shout out to her. That she was barely helping. That I hated her. That I had stupidly, childishly, once seen her as our ally, but I had long known better. It stuck in my throat, all of it, and instead I just looked at the places where the torch shone on the water, seeing the films of ice that it illuminated, spreading over half of the lake, ice so fine you could barely see it at all.

I dived back under. There was a moment, when I came up for my next breath, and I was right next to an island of ice. I must have been delirious, because all that I could think was that it looked like a sheet of satin, like if even the slightest breeze caught that sheet of ice, it would be carried away.

My father stopped swimming. He stayed close to the gazebo, holding on to a piece of the rail that had shattered, using it as a float while he treaded water. Every time I came up for air he was in the same spot, while Oisín and I kept going, kept searching. My arms ached, my legs were heavy, but I couldn't stop. I thought: even if I'm swimming slowly, at least I'm still swimming.

I don't know if I started to doze, or if I was just too intent on searching to notice that he was near me, but until my father grabbed me I didn't realise he had come close.

My memories from that point are scattered, in chunks, pieces missing. I remember being on his boat, but not how I got there. I remember trying to jump back into the water. I remember the look on my father's face after I slapped him, but I can't remember the slap, only that it didn't even sting my hand. And then I remember seeing Oisín coming to the surface, close to the edge of the lake, with Carina in his arms.

'An ambulance!' he cried, as he laid her gently on the ground. 'Will one of you call an ambulance?'

The next thing I was aware of was the mud and the water: the heaviness of it in my hair and my clothes; how it sucked at my legs; how it slowed me down while I climbed onto the bank and went to them.

Oisín loosened her scarf and began pressing on her chest, breathing into her mouth. I didn't know CPR, other than what I'd seen on TV, but I knew dead when I saw it.

I joined him, pressing on her chest while he breathed into her mouth, not wanting it to be true, not wanting to notice the marks, the cuts, the scrapes all over her neck, her chest, her face, caused by the strangling of the scarf, and the splintered wood.

I pushed him away after a few minutes, and breathed into her mouth myself. I wanted to give her my breath. I wanted to give her my life. I'd taken hers – that's what I felt right then – I'd taken her life and I wanted to give it back. I prayed – I don't even know whether I did it out loud or silently – but I prayed to God to swap us, to take me, and give her back.

And then I realised: this was the same spot. This was the very same spot where we had acted out Sleeping Beauty together as children. It was a sign. I think I beamed, crazily, so sure that it was a sign. This lake was the place where Carina's voice brought stories to life. Here, if anywhere, _she_ could be brought to life. I could be the prince again, kissing Princess Carina awake after her long sleep.

I don't know how long we stayed that way, Oisín and I, while the mothers and the brothers and my father stood to the side and looked. I suppose one of them must have done as Oisín asked, because at some stage an ambulance arrived.

It was hard to stand aside, hard to wait while they spent what felt like so little time trying to revive her. I wondered if they did it just because Oisín and I needed them to. I wondered if they knew, from the second they saw her, that she was too long gone.

Oisín was trying to talk to them about something he had read, something about cold water triggering diving reflexes in the brain, about people being revived after even half an hour in freezing water, because their bodies need less oxygen when they shut down.

They looked at him sympathetically, saying soothing things, saying they were sorry, and he grew angry, crying and shouting until I took his arm. It was a brief moment of clarity, for me, taking Oisín's arm. Once they stood up, away from her body, once they declared her dead, the night was confusion again.

I only vaguely heard the discussion about getting us to hospital – something about whether they should wait for another ambulance to take Carina separately from us, or whether we should all go now. But Oisín and I wouldn't have let go of her then. We couldn't have. His lips, his limbs, every part of him was shivering, and every few seconds he would shake so wildly that his fingers would lose contact with her, just for a moment. His eyes would grow round and frightened, and he would clasp as tightly as he could once again to her body. And his gloves, I noticed, were still on his hands.

While we travelled I kept speaking to her, telling her to come back, telling her I knew, I saw. Telling her I was sorry. Or maybe I only want to remember that I said those things. Maybe I just need to remember it that way. I must have said something, or shouted, or cried, or acted madly, because they sedated me. When I woke it was hours later, and I was in a hospital bed.
Christmas Day

Colm came to see me on Christmas morning. My family had come as well, but I told the nurses not to let them in, not to let anybody in to see me except for Colm and Oisín.

The nurses were telling me they thought I should rest, but I could hear Colm's voice outside, asking over and over if he could come in to see me. I must have looked fragile, I suppose, considering the way they kept trying to get me to go back to sleep. I think it was only because I kept ringing the buzzer, and calling out to them, that they decided to give in and let him visit.

He rushed into the room. His shoulders looked so broad. Everything about him suddenly seemed big, big enough to surround me, and I think he would have – as he came towards my bed it seemed like he was going to throw his arms around me – but maybe the drips and things scared him off, because he just gave my hand a squeeze, kissed my cheek really gently, and sat in the plastic chair next to my bed.

'What happened? I went to your place when I heard the ambulance, but your folks were driving off after it and they wouldn't tell me anything. Only for the ambulance driver shouting to me that ye were heading for Cavan General, I'd never have known.'

'Did you see him? Did you get to see Oisín? Is he all right?'

Colm nodded his head. 'I've been here all night and he came around before you, so they let me in to see him, just for a few minutes. He's on the mend. But he's... well, y'know. He's in bits. Obviously. His folks are with him now. I saw them heading towards his ward when I was on my way to you. I can't believe it Viv. I can't believe Carina's just... I can't believe it. What happened?'

'The rail was weak,' I told him. 'The rail on the gazebo was rotten, and she fell in. Her scarf caught, but then... I dunno. The whole thing just... gave up, gave way, and she went under with it. It was his fault. Maybe he didn't push her in or anything, but if she hadn't been so upset because of him... And she was pushing at it, I think. I saw her standing against the rail, like maybe she was pushing at it, or shaking it, because she was angry with him. It was his fault.'

'Oisín?' Colm sounded confused. 'What – did they have a fight or something?'

'My dad!' I screamed. 'She was upset because of my dad. They let him move back. Properly back.'

Colm grabbed my hand and after a few minutes of silence said, 'What happened?'

'I _told_ you what happened. I don't know what they were talking about but... she was upset and she fell in. That's... that's what happened.'

He squeezed my hand tighter, but I remember that it was somehow tender.

'No,' he said. 'I mean – you know what I mean. What happened?'

'I told you. How many times can I tell you? I tried to get her. I went in after her. Oisín and me, we went in after her. I don't know how he found her, because I could barely see a thing. I kept... I kept _feeling_ and swimming and... Graham and Michael – Colm, they didn't even dive in. Can you... I just always thought...'

'Viv.' His interruption was quiet. 'I'm just... I'm just glad that you're all right. I can't even get it into my head properly yet, about Carina, because I'm so glad you're all right. How bad is that?'

He kept holding my hand and he began to talk about nothing really, just how cold it was, and how his mother was asking after me, and how he'd forgotten to bring my presents to the hospital, but they were all at home under the tree. Even though he was talking about normal things, even though he let me lie there and say nothing in return, in my brain it was almost a scream, his question, screaming over and over again: What happened?

After a while I shut my eyes and put my hands over my ears, and told him I needed to go to sleep.
Saving Them

It was the day after St Stephen's Day when I stood in Oisín's living room, trying to accept what he was telling me. He didn't want to get the books back. His Christmas presents for Carina, thrown to the bank when he went into the water, he did not want back.

'But... the weather,' I said, looking outside, willing him to follow my gaze. 'I mean... the rain's going to come. They'll be wrecked. Or they could get, I dunno, thrown away or something.'

'I don't care about them,' he told me for what I think was the third or fourth time. 'Get Colm to go with you if it's that important. Just stop getting on at me Viv, because I dunno how many times I can say it. I'm not going back there.'

'Colm's at work. You know he's at work. And by the time he's finished we'll have to go to the removal. We have to go now. Jesus, Oisín, I thought you of all people would _get_ this. I thought you'd want to get them back.'

He went closer to the fire, probably just to be further from me as he said, 'I don't see the point. They were presents for her. What are they now?'

'What are they now?' I cried. 'They're hers. They're still hers.'

His mother looked into the room about that time, probably because she heard me raise my voice.

'Everything all right?' she asked.

Oisín nodded. 'Fine. We're fine.'

She arched a thick, dark eyebrow. They were just like Oisín's eyebrows, I thought. So much about him seemed to come from her: his hair, his eyes, his skin tone. In some way I couldn't pinpoint, though, she looked entirely different to her son.

'I'm going now, anyway,' I told her, noticing how relieved her face became. 'I'll see you tonight for the removal, Oish.'

His mother retreated to the kitchen, and Oisín followed me out to the hallway.

'I'm sorry, Viv.' He spoke softly. 'I know you're right. Do you reckon... could you go without me? Keep them for me till... I dunno. Till I can look at them. Maybe Jennifer'll go with you if Colm can't.'

Through the open door I could see his mother at the draining board, banging down a frying pan she had just taken from the sink. Flecks of water and suds went everywhere, but she just went on, scrubbing the next item before banging it down next to the pan. I could feel what she was thinking: _Go away and stop upsetting my son. Haven't you done enough?_

'Yeah. Yeah I'll do that,' I told him, trying to sound confident as I pulled open the door and left the house. There was no way I would ask Jennifer to go with me. There was no way I could go with anyone but Colm or Oisín.

I understood what Oisín was feeling. I did understand. I didn't want to go back there either, but I couldn't let his presents go the same way as the books from her bedroom. Resolved, I began to run, racing against the sky. When I got to the house there were no cars in the drive, but I couldn't take it as a certain sign that no one was home. I stayed out of sight, cutting through the forest on my way to the lake.

We both started when we saw each other. Therese was hunched on the bank. The carrier bag was by her feet, and she held one of the presents in her hands.

'Nngh!' I cried pathetically, not able to form a proper word, not able to say _no_ or _don't_ as she moved to tear open the paper.

She stopped, the present hanging limply in her hands. She didn't say anything, even as I snapped the present away from her and picked up the bag that held the rest, cradling it all in my arms.

I could see the dark circles under her eyes, I could see that her eyelids were swollen, but I could feel no sympathy. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but I rushed away. I remember how, as I turned from her, she held her arm out as if she thought the motion would be enough to call me back. I don't think she could have spoken, right then. I think if she had tried, her words would have been as malformed as mine.

≈

At the removal and the funeral Oisín stood to one side of me, and Colm to the other. If people tried to talk to us, we didn't notice. I didn't travel in the mourning car. Oisín, Colm and I followed the coffin in a car borrowed from Oisín's father. We didn't go to the hotel afterwards, for the food and drinks my father had organised, and no one from my family spoke to me at the church or the grave. I suppose they were afraid that, if they did, there might be a scene. They didn't try to contact me until early January.

I was in the good sitting room with Colm, trying to edge the Christmas tree out through the French doors, when May poked her head around from the kitchen and waved the phone at me, whispering, 'It's Pauline. Do you want to take it?'

I don't know why, but I looked at Colm. When all he did was shrug, I followed May into the kitchen, took the phone and said, 'Hello?'

There was no hello in return. Pauline said, 'The gardaí have just paid us a visit. What are you playing at, Vivienne? You could have at least spoken to me first, about whatever's going on in your head.'

'What are you talking about?'

'So it wasn't you? You didn't send them here?'

I peered around into the sitting room. Colm was staring down at the Christmas tree. He hadn't moved it an inch since I left. I think he must have sensed me looking at him but he wouldn't look up.

Eventually Pauline got tired of waiting and said, 'They've turned towards the farm, not out to the main road, so I assume they're on their way to talk to you. You know, I can't even figure out what it is you're doing at that farm. We're all here. Your family. We're all grieving. And then this? Someone lands this on us while we're all in bits. I don't know about you, but talking to them was the last thing I felt like doing today.'

I stayed silent.

'Look, Vivienne.' Pauline sighed. 'Just nip out the back, come over to us and we'll talk properly. Like you and Carina wanted to on Christmas Eve. We'll sit down, and we'll talk it all out. But do me the grace of coming, please. Do me the grace of talking to me first about whatever's on your mind. Then, if you still want to... well, the gardaí can wait till another time. We don't need to be at their beck and call, do we? Not at a time like this.'

'Why are they coming?' I managed, after another pause. 'What did they ask you?'

She sighed again. 'Vivienne... please.'

'No,' I said. 'I'm staying here.'

'There's something here for you,' she said quickly. 'And for that boy you had with you the other night. Therese... found them in with Carina's things. Christmas presents Carina bought for you both.'

For a moment all I wanted was to throw down the phone, rush to the house and prise Carina's things back. What would it be? Books, probably, like Oisín's presents to her.

'Well, I'll come for them in a little bit,' I said. 'Will you keep them for a little bit?'

I could hear it: the victory in her silence.

'I can't just run out!' I cried. 'Don't you think that'll look weirder? If I just run out and don't talk to them?'

On the other end, the phone was hung up.

Colm had left the good sitting room by the time I was finished on the phone. I went into the hallway and watched through the front window as the garda car pulled into the yard. When I saw them, a man and a woman stepping out of the car, I couldn't open the door. I walked away and went to find Colm.

He was outside, sitting on top of an upturned bucket with his head in his hands. The tree was next to him, but still partially in the sitting room. I wanted to talk to him, to ask him if he had called the gardaí. I wanted to ask him what he thought I should say to them. We were only a few feet apart, and I wouldn't even have had to raise my voice to speak to him, but I was still on the threshold, simply looking at him, when May led the gardaí into the room.

The man began to shiver and rub his hands together. 'Ah,' he said, looking at the tree through the open doors. 'The wife's been on at me to get ours out of the house, as well. Suppose time is getting on a bit. Maybe I'll do it when I get home.'

May asked if they wanted a cup of tea, and if they wanted to sit in the kitchen where it was warmer while they spoke to me. Her words came quickly and nervously, while I just stood looking out at Colm. He was walking away, out of my view.

'I'd love a cup,' the man said, following May into the kitchen.

The woman said, 'I'm all right, thanks, Mrs Barry. I'll just sit in here with Vivienne. If that's all right, Vivienne?'

I looked back at her then, out of politeness, I suppose; I didn't nod, or smile, just looked.

'And we can have a chat, Vivienne, if you're up to it?'

She sat on the couch and I looked around. All of the other chairs were covered with decorations, and at first I began to clear an armchair, but there were so many baubles, and I couldn't think of how best to get them off. Could I just push them all to the floor, let them roll all over the carpet? What would that say about me? Would she think I was mental, to do something like that just so I wouldn't have to share a couch with her? I looked helplessly at the baubles for a few seconds before I gave in and sat next to her.

I don't know what I expected – maybe for her to ask me outright questions, maybe for her to look at me directly, accusingly. Instead she began to speak about the accident, about how horrible it must have been for me, about how much I must miss Carina. She wasn't asking details about it, really; she didn't seem to think of it as anything but an accident. She seemed to be using it as a way into conversation with me, as something to open with.

I didn't say anything back, just noticed how soft her voice was. When she put a hand out to my arm she did it gently. Maybe it's just the way that some people are – when they're being sensitive and comforting and all that, they show it with tactility. I didn't like it and I retracted my arm immediately, looking away from her.

I began to cry, because her voice grew even softer after I pulled away. It's hard when someone speaks that way. It's hard not to cry.

She asked me if I wanted some water, or some tea, and if I was all right to go on with our chat. I think I laughed a bit when she called it a 'chat' again, but I still didn't say anything back to her. She was talking, by that point, about our household, and about things that had come to their attention. Was there anything I wanted to talk to her about? Was there anything I needed help with? Did I know that there were people who could help me if I felt like I needed to talk? Did I know that she was just a phone call away, if there was anything I felt she should know?

I tried to speak. I did. I remember opening my mouth, but... to say what? The words, even the thoughts, were only half-formed. My tongue felt huge, like it was filling my throat, and the only things that held clarity in my mind were the faces of the mothers, voicing things that they had rarely needed to say out loud, things I had heard between the lines of every sentence, and read in every look, for as long as I can remember.

Eventually she brought things to an end and gave me a card with a phone number on it, telling me I could call her any time.

I got to my feet and said, 'Well, I'll think about it. But I've really got to get these decorations away and this tree outside just now, so...'

And I couldn't bear that last look she gave me as she left. I couldn't look at her at all as she and the male garda left the house.

Once they were gone I went to find Colm. He was in the cattle shed, rubbing the head of one of his favourites while she ate. I thought he might ask me what I said to the gardaí, but instead he went to the door of the shed and said, 'We'll get this tree sorted, so, will we?'

I didn't say anything, just nodded, and followed him back to the house.

≈

It was nine when I found a chance to leave. Colm was at work, Davey was out, and May was steeping her feet and watching the news.

Quietly, I pulled on my coat and went out through the back door. I took a torch with me, but didn't turn it on until I was out of sight of the house. The cows lowed as I passed their shed, and I pictured them in there, warm and together.

I thought of Colm, then. I thought of how he loved their heat, and their smell, and their calm curiosity. I thought of how sometimes in the evenings I would check on the cows while he worked, just to be doing what he loved, just to be walking in his footsteps. Thoughts of him were almost enough to make me turn into the shed, and forget about where I was going. Almost.

When I got to the gate it was already open, and the front door was pulled wide before I knocked.

Pauline stood in front of me. She was dressed head to toe in black, as she had been for the removal and the funeral.

'I've got the kettle on,' she said. 'Tea or coffee?'

I glanced around the drive. 'No one else is here?'

She shook her head. 'Just you and me, kid. Tea or coffee?'

She went to turn and walk towards the kitchen, but I wouldn't follow.

'I'm not coming in. I only want what's mine and Oisín's.'

'Oh?' She turned back to face me. 'Been a long day, has it? I thought you might have come for our talk. You've probably done enough of that though, have you?'

I shrugged. 'They didn't really want to talk about anything. Or if they did they didn't come out with it. Maybe they were just paying a courtesy visit or something. Because of the accident.'

She began to smile, ever so slightly. 'That was nice of them. Same with us. Nothing to say, really. Couldn't see the point of it myself.'

'So? Have you got them then?'

'Got what?'

I sighed. 'You know what I want. The presents.'

'Oh. Those. God, I don't know, Vivienne, but I can't think what's happened to them. I had a clear out so I suppose... I wouldn't like to think that I _could_ have been that absentminded but...'

She looked at me closely. Her eyes were wide with mock-concern, and they jarred with her smirk.

'Are you going to give them to me or not?' I asked, keeping my voice firm, keeping my eyes on hers.

'Well, the bin men came this morning so...'

I walked away, feeling her watch my every step.

### Afterwards

I went back to work at the slaughterhouse, travelling with Colm when we had the same shifts. He took on more hours there and at the hotel, so I saw even less of him than I had before.

When he was off we spent time together, but we might as well not have. We sat and watched TV, or went to the pub and talked to the others about nothing much.

There were nights when he came home and slept on the couch downstairs, telling me the next morning that he hadn't wanted to wake me. There were nights when he tried to talk to me and I stared at the ceiling and acted as if he wasn't in the room. There was probably an ache, beneath it all. There were probably times when I longed to reach out and put my hand on his and ask him to look at me, to talk to me; if I did have those feelings they were somewhere in the pit of me, and I never felt them acutely enough to act.

More letters were coming from the bank. Most of them were addressed to Mr Barry, who hadn't been back since before Christmas. May opened them and left them on the table so that any of us could have read them had we wanted, but Colm seemed to pay no attention to the letters, or to the farm, any more. Like me, he didn't pay real attention to anything.

We still had sex sometimes, though I can barely imagine now how we managed to get to that place. It wasn't only on the five or six drink nights. It was unpredictable. He would come into the bedroom and lie down beside me, or I would find him in the spare room or on the sofa, and we would find ourselves doing it, desperately, clingingly, without saying a word to each other. If it began with me wanting connection, I don't know. What I recall of those times is that, however much I needed him, somewhere in the midst of the act, instead of finding Colm, I would lose myself. Often I would realise that I was crying afterwards, and wouldn't know when I had begun.

For months I told him I didn't know if I was going to go back to college. The decision was made one night while I lay awake, hearing him come home from the hotel, listening for footsteps on the staircase that never came. I thought: if he comes up now, I'll stay in Cavan; if he comes up now, I'll talk to him properly.

The truth is that there were many nights when I thought the same things, nights on which he _did_ come upstairs, and still I didn't speak to him, so I don't know why that night was different; I don't know why, the next morning, the decision I had made and unmade a dozen times before was finally made firm.

I went down at seven to find him sleeping on the couch. I woke him with coffee, and as soon as he opened his eyes I said, 'I've been thinking, y'know. Do you think I should go back? To UCD?'

He took the cup from me. 'Do you think you should?' he asked, blinking.

I knelt on the floor, playing with a thread that was unravelling from his blanket while I shrugged and said, 'S'pose. Might be for the best?'

Upstairs, May opened her bedroom door and Colm and I jumped at the sound. He gulped a mouthful of coffee and sat up, saying, 'Well, suppose we both knew you would, in the end.' He glanced at the clock on the wall. 'Better get dressed. We'll be late for work.'

There were no more conversations about it, I just went ahead and made arrangements to return to Dublin.

≈

I think it was springtime when my family moved away, because I remember noticing how the moving truck sent a flurry of cherry blossoms to the ground when it passed me on the lane. Not even Graham or Michael had been in touch to say they were leaving, but I don't remember feeling upset about it at the time. It's only begun to pain recently: the thought of Graham and Michael; wondering what they are doing and what sort of people they have become.

≈

I spent more time with Oisín than I did with Colm, around then. I made a sort of vow to myself that I would stay close to him. I had this idea that a thing like that, like what we had been through together, ought to bind us forever. For months afterwards I saw him or spoke to him every single day.

I think I was waiting for the right moment, some magical moment where we would talk about what happened, and about what we ought to do now. I expected that he would offer some suggestion, say where we should go from here, but he never did. In truth we talked about nothing, not even Carina, most of the time we were together, yet she was all I could think about when I saw him, and I know he felt the same. He would look at me in the months afterwards. I'd catch him looking at my eyes, or my hair, as if he was looking for traces of Carina.

He didn't return to UCC after Christmas, but planned to go back the following autumn. He took a job in the Long House, washing dishes in the kitchen, or cleaning in the mornings or after the lunchtime rush. When it was busy he was expected to help with serving, and if you saw him talking to a customer on those days, all you would want to do was take his hand and lead him home.

Sometimes I'd pop in on my way home from work and it would be that quiet time, after lunch and before the evening rush, and I would catch him at the table where she sat the night they met. He would sit in the same seat she had occupied, with his head in his hands. If I caught him that way I never went to talk to him. I quietly left, and called in on him later in the evening instead.

The last time I saw Oisín in person was in the Long House. We met, alone, on a Tuesday after he finished his shift. It was just before we were due to go back to college, and we drank together for hours. It was one of the few times he spoke about her. It began with me asking him about his flat – where it was and so on – but he didn't seem to be paying any attention. He was looking at me: up and down, slow and searching.

'She's the reason, y'know,' he said. 'I don't want to go back. I don't want to... I don't want anything. But when I...when I missed her, or when I phoned her too much, or when I talked about skipping a couple of days of college so I could see more of her... she went ape. She had it all planned, how we'd live our lives. She'd have gone ape with me these past months, for not going back. She loved it. She loved science. She loved the stars. She said I was going to discover things, and she was going to be right beside me when I did.'

I wasn't sure if he wanted me to respond. He was looking at me still, but in an unfocused way, so I waited, and after a while he blurted, 'I wonder what it is, though. That thing that makes someone who they are.'

He shook his head and said, 'Forget it, I'm just thinking out loud. So anyway, you were asking me about my new flat?'

He went on, talking about going back to Cork. When closing time came I gently broached the subject of his Christmas presents, as I did every time we spoke. He replied, as usual, 'Can you just keep them for me a little while longer?'

He walked me back as far as the lane, and before he turned for home he said, 'We will call, won't we Viv? We'll stay in touch?'

I nodded. 'Course we will. Pinky swear.'

He reached out his little finger, grasping mine and laughing softly. 'Pinky swear,' he said.

As I walked away I thought: it'll be easier, just calling. I could still stay in touch with him, the way I felt I ought to, but I wouldn't have to feel him look at me and wish I was someone else.

### Voiceless

Colm helped me move to Dublin, to a house share in Ranelagh. It was a cold day, and the heater in the van was acting up, so we stopped to get some coffee to warm us. Even though I was shivering we drank the coffee outside, standing in the car park of the filling station, looking at the van without speaking much. Before we got back into the van, he pulled off his green zip-up top and put it around my shoulders. I noticed that it smelled like the CK One I'd bought him at Christmas, and with his scent all around me the rest of the drive sped by.

I didn't have much to unload from the van and it only took us a few minutes to lift it into the tiny bedroom I was renting. We were rushing backwards and forwards, racing past each other, and I think if I realised that we had got it all in, I would have stayed in the room instead of going back to the van to see if there was more. Had I stayed in the room, we would have been inside when we said goodbye. Instead we stood at the kerb, while he said, 'Well. S'pose... Will I get off then or...?'

I shrugged. 'If you want. You have a shift, do you?'

He said nothing for a moment. Not yes, not no. Why couldn't he just say, 'No.'? He didn't have a shift. I knew he didn't have a shift. I heard him the day before, on the phone to his cousin, arranging to take the evening off. I had gotten my hopes up, thinking that he might stay with me for one last night.

'Well, sure, I'll get off then,' he said. 'If that's all you need me for.'

I wanted to look at him. I wanted to fix my eyes on his so that he would see what I was feeling. I wanted him to take my chin in his hands, tilt it upwards, and _make_ me look at him. He leant in and kissed me then, barely touching my lips, and still I couldn't look at him. He opened his door and sat into his van. I wondered: is he relieved to be in there, to have gotten that far, to be one step closer to leaving?

'Will you call me, then?' he asked as he closed the door. 'Or...?'

'Sure. I'll call soon.' I nodded, surprised at how emotionless my voice sounded, surprised to find that I wasn't crying.

I sat down on the kerb when he drove off. I don't think I wished for him to slow down, to come back. I don't remember thinking or wishing anything. Either way, he didn't slow or hesitate. He drove cleanly to the corner and turned out of the housing estate.

I sat looking at the ground for about an hour with his top hugged around me until one of my new housemates, a girl who had known Carina, got home from wherever she had been and took me inside with an arm around my waist, telling me I needed to get warm.

I didn't call him and he didn't call me, not even when Christmas came again. I did pick up my mobile phone about a dozen times on Christmas Eve while I sat alone in the house.

It wasn't until that holiday that I started to cry about it all, for the first time since returning to Dublin. Maybe it was because I was on my own. I didn't have to worry about anyone asking me if I was all right.

I went out for walks, or took the bus into the city, but even then I would sporadically start crying all over again. I knew people were gawping at me and I didn't care. I didn't feel embarrassed when strangers stared. I just kept right on crying.

Sometimes little things would set it off – like I might be walking through St Stephen's Green, and a memory would come to mind of when Carina and I had been there, drunk and feeding the ducks. Or I might get on the bus and the only seat left would be one we'd shared before. It was silly things like that. It was the oddest sort of venting, when I think about it now, because as soon as the other girls came back after Christmas, I didn't cry once more.

People did know, at least a little bit, about what happened to Carina. Her friends must have heard something from Lucy Hanley, I suppose, or from wherever it is that people hear these things, but they didn't ask me to go into details, they just told me how sorry they were. And I knew, by that time, that people aren't nearly as curious as you might believe. You'd be surprised with how much people let you get away with _not_ saying. You wait for further questions, but they rarely come. Maybe it's that they've formed their opinions already, and need no more detail; or maybe it's simply that they have their own worries, their own pasts and problems, and have no room to care about much more.

I did see Lucy Hanley, one day in Ranelagh. I had switched to my teaching course and changed my college by then, but I was visiting Sinead and Lynne, two of my former housemates, to celebrate the end of their time at UCD. Lucy was on the other side of the street, coming out of a shop, and I was walking into a bar with Sinead and Lynne. When Lucy called my name and waved, I pretended not to notice and kept walking.

For a long time Oisín and I talked on the phone every couple of weeks. I had been wrong, though, in thinking that it would be easier that way. The difference in his voice was even more obvious when that was the only part of him that I had on which to concentrate. I kept waiting to hear a trace of the old Oisín, of the way he was when he was with Carina, of the way he was on the night at the lake. That night I believed he could have done anything. That night he made me see things differently. For the time we were together, looking for Carina, I really thought things were going to change.

Sometimes I would mean to bring things up; I would pick up the phone, feeling brave, but then I would hear his voice, and the hollow quality it had taken on, and instead I would ask him something pointless about his course, or his flatmate, or how the weather was in Cork. Eventually I gave up calling him, because all it did was remind me of what I had always known: when it came to the things I wanted to say, I was voiceless.
Part Five

### Living

I don't know how long I would have gone on in the same way. I did it for years, so maybe I would have done it forever. But change came unexpectedly, shortly after I began teaching.

I couldn't keep away from the book shop where Carina had worked. It was an obsession, a compulsion, something I couldn't make myself give up. If I went more than a few days without going there, panic set in and stress consumed.

The staff knew to leave me alone. If someone new started working, I would sometimes see them looking in my direction after maybe my third or fourth hour, but James, the manager, would whisper in their ear, and they would leave me be. James was a short, tense blond man, and he had loved Carina.

Every spare moment I needed to be there, on Abbey Street, searching. So I suppose it made sense that the only place I went in my spare time was the place where I should meet Gary. I was rifling through the secondhand section downstairs, looking again for books she had lost the year the bungalow was cleared out. I spied a PG Wodehouse book she had loved and lunged across the aisle to grab it, focused on nothing but the book, when I felt the bump. Books crashed to the floor around me and I turned to see a tall, embarrassed man.

'Sorry,' he said, bending to pick up the books he'd dropped. 'I always pile them too high when I'm carrying them. I tell myself it'll save time, but... are you all right?'

'You might have got a speck of dust on my clothes. I'll have to bill you for the cleaning.'

He nodded. 'Of course.'

I started to laugh then, really loudly, straight from my belly, as I bent to help him.

'You were joking,' he said. 'I'm a dope.'

'Of course I was joking. It was my fault, not yours.'

I put the last book into his hands, and we stood.

'You're the one. The one who comes in here all the time, I mean,' he said. 'Well, obviously you know that. You're the one who does it, so obviously you know. I'm always pricing or shelving, never at the till. You probably haven't seen me? Despite the fact I'm usually hovering dangerously close to you.'

I laughed again, even though I hadn't really stopped from the last time. He had these really blue eyes, and they were so alive, and he was looking at me with his eyes crinkling at the sides while he babbled.

'I'll give you a discount on that,' he said, nodding at the book I held. 'To make up for my clumsiness. James – the boss man – he's letting me play with the big scary cash machine today. He's been training me on how to use it for a _long_ time, because he thinks I'm a bit dense, but today I must've been wearing my capable face for a change.'

We walked to the big scary cash machine, with him filling every second of otherwise silence, and I bought my book. I stood there, looking at him for a few seconds after the transaction was finished. He stopped talking, and looked back at me.

'I'm going to have a drink this evening, I think,' he said, after a moment. 'By myself. All alone. Very lonely.'

'You shouldn't drink alone. It's a dangerous road.'

'Really? Well, if you say it's true, then I have to believe you. You have an honest face. You have a face that likes to enjoy a drink or two, as well, I think. But not alone. Because you know about the dangerous road. You like to have your drinks with clumsy book shop employees, I'm hoping. That is, the employees of the book shop are clumsy, rather than the shop itself. I've never actually met a clumsy book shop. That I recall. I'm not really sure how I'd identify one, if I came across it. Does it bump its doors into people a lot? Maybe it's got wonky shelves? I've rehearsed this, by the way, in case you were wondering how I came up with such an eloquent way of asking.'

'You've rehearsed asking out random customers?'

He shrugged, biting his lip and looking down at the counter. When he looked at me again his smile had become sheepish. 'Rehearsed asking out girls with blonde hair and grey-green eyes who come in every Saturday morning and every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, muttering under their breath while they go through the shelves like they're clearing a mine collapse.'

I was too surprised to reply, at first. Had he not begun to look so nervous, I might never have managed to say, 'What time do I like to have these drinks, then?'

His face relaxed. 'Oh, about six, I imagine. You can call me Gary, if you like. It's short for clumsy book shop employee. And before you introduce yourself –' He put his hands to his temples and closed his eyes. 'Wait for it, my psychic skills are on fire, today. You're... Vivienne. Viv to those who know you.'

I hung my head. 'Everyone in here knows who I am.'

He took a breath. 'I em... yeah. Yeah, they do. First rule I was told on day one: leave Vivienne to it. Give her all the space she wants, but don't offer her any help. And I'm breaking rule two an' all: don't get any funny thoughts about Vivienne, because she won't be interested. I've just gone and cocked this up, haven't I?'

'Not your fault,' I said, as I blinked and walked away.

I was out on the footpath when he caught up with me, shouting, 'Viv!'

My hand went to my throat as I turned, pulling nervously at the collar of my shirt.

'Do you know when I first saw you?' he asked.

I shook my head, trying not to stare at him. Why was it that, even in my upset and embarrassment, all I wanted to do was stare at him?

'You were on the other side of the road.' He nodded his head to the opposite footpath. 'And I was right here, scrubbing off graffiti some frustrated writer had left in front of the shop. And there was this old lady, walking her dog across the road, and she dropped her bag and her shopping went everywhere. And while some waste of space bus driver was busy beeping at her, you went to help. You stuck two fingers up to the driver, and you calmed the dog down, and took your time helping her pick up her shopping.'

'Well.' I couldn't keep the disappointment from my voice. 'You obviously didn't help.'

He shook his head. 'No. No I didn't. Because James started barking at me just as I was about to. And by the time I finished arguing with him you were already on this side of the street, and I got a bit... stunned. You were smiling ear to ear while you patted the dog. And that smile – how happy you looked – I didn't get it. There was James, telling me to leave you alone. And there was you, smiling. But then you came into the shop, and your face changed. Happy face was gone. You were just like James said. Big feck off vibe surrounding you.'

I blinked again. Why couldn't we be back at the till, laughing and joking with possibility in front of us? Why did he have to go and ruin it by knowing my name?

'Well if that's how you see me, with my big feck off vibe, then you should be thankful for a lucky escape. Is this going anywhere Gary, because I've got things to do?'

His shook his head, and still all I could do was stare. There I was, trying to make him leave me alone, but all I could do was stare. He was so good-looking. Did he know? Did he have any idea how attractive he was?

'No,' he said. 'No, I suppose it isn't going anywhere, is it? Never mind that I've spent every day since then wishing I could make you as happy as a _dog_ did. Never mind that when you couldn't reach up to To Kill a Mockingbird two Wednesdays ago I got it down for you, knowing you wouldn't even notice, let alone thank me. Never mind that – oh, just, never mind, full stop. Never mind.'

People were looking at us, because he had raised his voice over his last few words. I walked closer to the shop window to avoid a boy on rollerblades, and Gary followed. He was staring at me, too. He was. Everything we said conflicted with how we _looked._ It was so confusing. If he had kissed me, right then, I would have let him. I would have kissed him back. His hair fell into his eyes and all I wanted to do was reach up and brush it away. All I wanted to do was touch him.

'If I've been so rude to you for weeks, then why were you so lovely to me today?'

'Vivienne –' He leant closer to me, and I thought he might touch my waist, but he pulled his hands back, pressing them into his pockets. '– I've been lovely to you _every_ day. Any time someone's picked something up for you, any time someone's been hovering in your vicinity, it's been me. I don't _care_ about rude Vivienne. Who I care about, the girl I want to have a drink with, she's Vivienne who helps old ladies and sticks two fingers up to bus drivers. That's the Vivienne I want to go out with. Do you think she might still like to go out with me?'

I'm sure he could hear that I was having difficulty keeping my breathing in check. We were close, by then, and I was looking up at him, at his face, and I was aware of the breadth of his shoulders, wondering: what would they feel like? Broad shoulders like that, wrapped around me. How would that feel? My voice, when it came, was shaking. 'Yeah. Yeah, I'd really like to go out with you.'

His eyes widened. 'Really? I could pick you up after work tonight?'

I thought about him coming to my flat. The place was a mess. Would I have time to tidy?

'I'll meet you here when you've finished. Sixish?'

'Six.' He smiled then, a smile that reached right up to his eyes, and I couldn't look away from him while he backed into the shop, still smiling, still looking back at me until we were out of each other's sight.

When I got home I followed my usual routine, filing the book alphabetically, taking my list from the A4 folder next to my bed, running my eyes over it until I came to the title of the book I had found. I took the pen – the good pen, the silver pen bought especially for the task – and ticked a clear blue tick next to the title. One more down. For once, the thought that I still had hundreds to go wasn't comforting. I was aware, out of nowhere, that collecting the lost books had been the only thing that had kept me going. And I was aware, too, of how sad that was. For the first time in years, I actually looked at my life and thought: it's sad.

I almost didn't go that night. Feeling as I did, about this man I had just met... it only served as a reminder of the last time I felt that way. This wouldn't last, I told myself, while I bathed, and dressed, and put make-up on for the first time in years. Nothing feckin' lasts, I told myself, as I closed the door behind me and went to meet my date.

≈

Gary talked a lot. He showed me pictures of his family and friends and he was full of stories about them all. If he was doing it to fill in the gaps in the conversation, it didn't matter. Because soon the way he talked so much, the way the words tumbled from his mouth with barely a breath in between, was making me giddier than the wine I was drinking.

And it was the same on each date we had. He would talk, I would laugh. Eventually I talked too, although my talk would centre on books, or music, or on the children at the school where I taught.

Gary's parents were both dead, having been in a car crash when Gary was just twelve. He didn't speak much about them. When he did, his grief confused me. I knew grief – when it came to Carina, I knew grief. But grief for his parents? I comforted him in the ways I thought I ought to, and I spoke about Carina in the same sparse way he spoke of his parents. All the while I wondered: if my father died, if the mothers died, would I feel anything at all?

Since his parents' death he had lived with Mark, his older brother. They shared the house with Niamh – Mark's wife – and Ryan, Mark's and Niamh's six-year-old son. They were so close, the four of them. Mark was eight years older than Gary and so had taken on a fatherly role in his life.

After we'd been out a few times, Gary took me and Ryan to the beach for a swim. It was cold and I didn't want to go into the water, so I watched from the sand while he helped Ryan paddle about in arm bands. As I looked at them I felt no panic. When he helped Ryan change clothes I felt no worry. For the first time in memory I watched an adult with a child, and didn't feel a sick lurch in my stomach.

After a half hour or so, Ryan came to sit with me while Gary swam alone. Ryan and I ate ham sandwiches, watching as Gary made his way along the shoreline with strong fast movements. His shoulders were wide, and beautiful. It soothed me, watching him swim, and I knew that I would go every Sunday, as long as Gary wanted me there, just so I could see him that way.

That first Sunday we brought fish and chips back, and ate it in front of Toy Story. Niamh sat next to me, and we shared a bottle of wine. Already we were friends. She had such a warm, pretty face, and gorgeous red hair, and was almost always smiling.

I glanced at Mark, on her other side. He was as tall as Gary, and when he and Niamh were standing he towered above his wife.

Ryan sat on the floor, in front of Gary, balancing his plate of chips on his lap. I watched him as he ate, chips falling out of his mouth while he laughed at the film.

With one hand Gary tousled Ryan's curly red hair, while with the other hand he stole some of his chips. I snatched the stolen chips from Gary and ate them while he shook his head in mock annoyance.

When we were all together on weekends like that, I felt no worry about what I didn't say, what I didn't tell. I just loved them, every single one of them, and wished I was part of their family.

≈

I was with Gary for two months when I saw Oisín on TV. It was a show about astronomy, and the presenter was visiting an observatory in Chile. She started to talk to Oisín about the Very Large Telescope. There was no wedding band on his hand, but that probably didn't mean much. Sometimes I forget to put mine on. Or he could have a partner, rather than a wife. I wanted him to have someone. The thought of him being alone...being lonely...

He looked thinner, almost gaunt, and although when he began to talk about the images on the screen I saw a little of his old self, as soon as the segment was coming to an end and the camera was panning away, his eyes lost their light again. He stood at the back of the screen, gazing at the image of a nebula while the presenter talked. I don't know what I was thinking, because I said to Gary, 'I used to know that guy.'

Gary looked up from the book he was reading and asked eagerly, 'Really? From where?'

I stood up, wishing I had kept my mouth shut, and only answered him as I was walking out the door.

'He went out with Carina,' I said.

He followed me to the bedroom, and I think he might have struck up a conversation about it, if I hadn't started to undress in front of his eyes. Because that was in the early days of our relationship, when he was happy to go along with my lack of communication, when it was easy for me to get him to do as I wanted, and leave the past to lie.
Versions of the Truth

Secrets are insidious, filthy crawling things that take over lives. I knew that, I knew all of that, and yet I still went on keeping them from Gary. He wouldn't want to be with a freak like me, I would tell myself. He's better _not_ knowing. It would be selfish for me to make him deal with things that _I_ haven't even dealt with yet.

Anyway, other than that, our relationship was perfect. We spent almost every night together. He helped me get projects ready for my class. We took Ryan to the park and the beach and the cinema. He got along with the few friends I had. He loved the same books, the same films as I loved. We laughed so much sometimes that my stomach ached. We made love whenever, wherever we could. He left sweet notes for me to find inside books, or on the fridge, or inside the bathroom cabinet. Happiness, that's what it was, to be with Gary for that first year. Every moment with him, other than my occasional moment of omission, was happiness.

The feeling lasted almost until our first anniversary. While I was content – and a little bit amazed to have made things last so long – Gary was slowly growing distant. I didn't notice it at first, but once I did it was impossible to ignore. I wasn't surprised. I remember the distinct feeling of _un_ surprise as he went off for the third day in a row without telling me where he was going. When I asked him about it, I fully expected the flustered expression that greeted my query.

And so what if I caught him, more than once, whispering urgently with Mark and looking panicked when he saw me approach? I felt unsurprised by it all. Gary was perfect. I was not. This was a relationship that was bound for failure.

A few days before Halloween we sat in his living room, while upstairs Mark and Niamh settled Ryan for the night. The remainder of our Chinese food dinner was littered all over the coffee table, and I was getting up to clear things when Gary reached an arm out and pulled me gently back to the sofa.

'Leave that. Me and Mark'll do it later while you and Niamh polish off the rest of the Chardonnay. I want to talk to you.'

'Oh, right,' I said, reaching for my wine glass.

'You look worried,' he observed.

I was, but I shrugged, and said, 'I look tired is what I look. That's why I want to get this lot cleared away. Come on, help me before they finish Ryan's story.'

'Are you not wondering why I'm not reading Ryan's story as usual?'

'I hadn't thought about it. Tell me so, why aren't you?'

He took a deep breath. 'You know what? Why don't we go for a walk?'

'Fine,' I said resignedly, getting up and putting on my coat. I knew what was coming. I could understand his thinking: if we do this outside, then Viv won't cry and shout and disturb Ryan.

≈

Most of the lights in the other houses were turned on, and in back gardens I could hear two dogs barking back and forth.

'What do you think they're talking about?' Gary asked.

'Um, the yappy dog said he had chicken for dinner and the bigger sounding dog asked if he could move in, because the only food he ever gets in his house comes out of a tin.'

Gary laughed. 'You're missing a vocation. You could rake it in as a dog whisperer.' He nodded to a bench. 'Will we sit down?'

I took a seat a few inches away from Gary. Usually on a cold night I would curl in against him and he would wrap his arms around me. I still wasn't tired of them – even now, when I was sure we were at the end, I longed for his arms. He made no move to come closer to me, which only confirmed my fears.

He asked, 'What do you think of what I do? My job, I mean.'

'What do I think about it? You love books. You get to be surrounded by them all day. What could be better? Look.' I sighed. 'I think I know where this is going, Gary, so can you just get to the point?'

'You don't think I should go back to college or something? Twenty-six-year-old man, making minimum wage, you don't find anything wrong with that?'

I shook my head, exasperated. 'Look, what do you want me to say here? The least I deserve is for you to come out and say what you want to say, instead of trying to make me do the dirty work.'

'You wouldn't like me better if I had my own shop, then?'

I tried not to feel relieved too quickly. 'Is that what you're thinking about? Getting a shop? Just – is that all? Because I thought you might be working your way around to, y'know, the old heave-ho.'

His eyebrows rose. 'You thought I was going to break up with you?'

I reddened. 'I dunno. Yeah. Yeah I did. You've been off with me lately. Sneaking off and acting all weird and I just thought...'

He shook his head. 'That's the nuttiest thing you've ever come out with. Break up with _you_? I have been sneaking around, but only because I wanted to be sure I could sort it all properly. I didn't want to talk about it until I knew we could do it. I didn't want to build it all up and then... well, fail miserably. I've been looking at a shop with a big flat above it. Big enough for two. There was someone else sniffing around, but I think I'm going to nab it.'

'That's so brilliant. I'm really happy for you.'

'I've had the money since, well, y'know, since my parents' accident. I just couldn't settle on what to do with it. That's how come I was working in the shop in the first place. Giving it a try, seeing if I really should get my own place. Only now I don't want it to be just my place. I want it to be ours.'

'But I've got a job,' I said.

'I know. And I know you love it. I don't mean work in the shop with me or anything. Just that I want it to be yours as much as I want it to be mine.'

I looked at his leg then. I couldn't help it, because his legs were always the first place to reveal his nerves. He would circle his ankles, tap his feet, rub his thighs, and at that moment he was varying between all three.

'I don't know how to do this properly,' he said. 'Feck it. I was going to wait. Till Christmas. Till Valentines. Till your birthday. I don't know. I'm making a balls of it, amn't I?'

His hand went into his coat pocket and he pulled out a small red box.

I thought of all the things it could be – a necklace, a pair of earrings, a friendship ring, even. As he opened the box, I looked at the white-gold band with the diamond at its centre. 'Oh.'

'That... looks like a happy face,' he said.

'Does it? Yeah, I guess it probably does,' I admitted as he got up from the bench and went down onto one knee in front of me.

'I mean, I know it's not quite a year and I haven't even met your folks yet, but will you... y'know? Will you marry me, Viv? Will you do the whole thing with me, beside me – the home, the white dress, the growing wrinkly? I'm going on a bit, in case you're wondering, because I can't bear to stop and ask you why the happy face is slipping, and I can't bear the thought of a conversation where I pretend – once again – that I didn't notice your happy face slipped when I mentioned meeting your parents. Your happy face always goes away when I mention family. That's why I don't. Much. And now I'm going to get up, because I can tell this stopped going well _many_ sentences ago.'

He sat back next to me and put the box into his pocket. By then my hands were underneath my thighs, and even though he tried to touch me, tried to pull my hands out, I wouldn't budge.

'It's just a bit soon, don't you think?' I said, not looking at him. 'Y'know. Not quite a year, like you said. So.'

'No.' He shook his head. 'No, it's not that. You want to marry me. I know you do because I saw your face when I pulled that ring out, and that was the same face you had after the first time we kissed, after the first time we... y'know. It's the face you have when I get you flowers, or a book, or when I meet you after school, or when you're playing with Ryan or... it's your happy face. It _was_ your happy face.'

I wanted to tell him he was right, that I was so happy when I was with him because I knew _–_ I could _feel_ – how good he was. I could see how good Ryan's life was. I wanted to tell him that's when I knew I loved him – when I first saw him with Ryan and _didn't_ feel a knot in my stomach, _didn't_ feel a horrible constriction in my throat. How could I say it, though? I had to search for the suitable words, for the words I could afford to let out.

Before I could find them he said, 'I've _never_ been as happy as this last year with you. Have you? I mean, past few weeks of me doing a bad impression of a Russian spy aside, have you ever been this happy?'

'I _am_ happy with you,' I told him. 'I love you. That's... that's not the issue. We should talk. Properly. I should tell you some things. I mean, hell, you've put up with me _not_ telling you things for long enough.'

He continued to fidget. 'You sound like you're about to reveal some terrible secret. Like you're the head of the mafia or you've robbed a bank or something. Have you robbed a bank? I think I could easily forgive that, as long as you shared the loot with me.' He shook his head. 'Bad joke. Nerves. You do want to marry me, don't you? I know you do. Look, just tell me, Viv.'

I looked at him, deciding: how much to tell. He was everything to me. He deserved absolute honesty. But the thought of remembering details, saying them out loud. He wouldn't love me. I wouldn't be able to _let_ him love me if I actually thought honestly about the past.

'I can see being married to you, growing old, the whole lot. The thing I _can't_ see is the actual marriage. I can't see the whole church thing. Partially because I don't _get_ the whole church thing, but mostly because my side of the aisle'd be a bit light on audience members. I wouldn't want my family there.'

'Is that it? Is that all?' His face relaxed. 'Listen, if they're the bloody Addams Family I wouldn't give a damn. Do you not reckon I would have worried about you meeting my lot? My mam... Jesus, I miss her, but that woman had some tidying obsession. Whenever me or Mark took friends home from school she made them take their shoes off. We had to eat over the sink half the time. And my dad? Put it this way, a book shop wouldn't have been his dream for me – a boxer, a footballer, fine – but a book shop nerd? Families are a nightmare, Viv. Every single one of them. I feel crap saying that considering my folks are six feet under. But it's true. A nightmare.'

I clenched my teeth. 'Do you think I'm an idiot? I _know._ I know people fight with their parents. I know what's normal and I know what's not normal. Look, I'm trying to tell you something, and it's the only time I'm ever going to talk about it, and if that's not all right with you, well then... well then I hope you kept the receipt for the ring.'

The smile left his face, so I went on. 'Carina. I never told you much about her. Even about how she died.'

He raised an eyebrow. 'You said she drowned.'

I took a breath. 'Kind of. She fell and her scarf caught on something. By the time she fell into the water she was probably already nearly dead. It was at this lake. We were all there. Our parents and everything. And the thing is, only me and her boyfriend really tried to save her. None of that family gave a damn. So.'

He stayed quiet until he realised I wasn't going to say any more. 'Oh. The guy you saw on TV that time. One of the many times you looked like you were about to tell me something, but then didn't. So what are you saying? They just let her die? They didn't try to help her?'

'Pretty much. Eventually my dad went in after her. But he – oh look, the whole day, what went on before – it was their fault, all of them. It's too hard to go into the details, but when I say I never want to see any of them again, I mean it. Never.'

'And you've no one else – brothers, sisters, cousins – that you'd want to invite?'

'She was all I ever really had. So it's not a question of whether I want to marry you. Maybe now you know I'm serious about this – that I don't want them there and I don't want to talk any more about it – maybe now you won't want to marry me.'

He sat back and looked at me. He looked so hard that I had to lower my eyes. I don't know how long we sat that way, with him studying me, while I waited for it: the barrage of questions that _had_ to follow what I just said. It wasn't enough. I hadn't given him enough. I knew it. He knew it.

'There'll be no family on your side?' he asked. 'No big church wedding? I won't get to see you walk down the aisle towards me on your father's arm?'

I shook my head.

'Good,' said Gary. 'Can't stand church weddings, so I can't. We'll do it in the registry office, or go to Vegas. Have Mark and Niamh as witnesses. We can break it to anyone else who matters afterwards.'

'Really? You promise you're not going to make me talk any more about it? You still _want_ to marry me?'

'A katrillion percent yes. I love you, and there's nothing you can tell me that'll change the way I feel.' He pulled me in to face him. 'And we can do it sooner now, can't we? We can do it straight away. Plus, this way I won't have to worry about any of my uncles standing up and telling racist jokes at the reception. Yeah, reckon I'll wait a while before I introduce you to Uncle Jim, so I will.

'So...' He reached into his pocket and drew out the red box, getting down once more onto one knee. 'Vivienne McEvoy, will you marry me?'

I felt love, fear, guilt and hope, as I replied, 'Yeah. Yeah I will.'
Gary, Major and Me

We didn't go to Las Vegas. We married in the registry office in Dublin, with Mark and Niamh as witnesses and Ryan holding the rings. Other than them, we only invited a few friends. I took Gary's surname that day, and have used it ever since.

Getting married was easy, the way we did things. I didn't glance at the door, or worry that anyone might turn up and spoil things. I was able to pay attention to the vows that I made, and to enjoy the smile on Gary's face.

The months following our wedding went by so fast. We moved into the flat and opened up the shop, and soon after that I got a position at a nearby school. Life was happy even if there were deceptions on my part. I continued to take my contraceptive pill, secretly. I only stopped when Gary returned from a doctor's appointment to say that he had almost no chance of having children.

We were standing in the shop as he told me. Rose had just left, and I still had my hand on the Open/Closed sign of the shop door.

'Oh,' I said, wondering how to arrange my face, my voice, so that he would think I was as disappointed as he appeared. I suppose I must have managed a distraught expression, because he reached out to comfort me.

'I'm so sorry, Viv. But we can find ways around it. I know how much you love kids.'

'Mm,' I managed. 'Well, let's have a drink, will we?'

We spent the evening that way, with Gary trying to cheer me up, and me pretending I needed cheering. He lit candles, ordered pizza, and we drank three bottles of red wine. It was almost two a.m., and we were about to go to bed when he picked his mobile phone up and said, 'Can't believe I didn't hear the beep. It's a text from Van Man.'

'From who now?'

'Oh, I never told you what happened when I was walking through the shopping centre car park, did I?'

'The one where the doctor's is?'

He nodded. 'I meant to say it to you, but then I went in for my appointment and... anyway, there was this delivery driver, skidding to a halt on his way out. The beamer behind him almost smashed into him. There was nearly a pile-up. Guess why he did it? Guess why he braked like that?'

I tried to disguise a yawn. Bed seemed like the nicest place in the world. 'Dunno.'

'So, he rushes out of the van, goes down onto his knees and picks up these two tiny puppies. I was right next to him by this time. I could see the sweat on his forehead. I could see the skid marks on the ground. Beamer man behind the van is shouting, waving his fist, telling Van Man to move. Van Man completely ignores him, rubbing the puppies, talking to them in the sweetest voice – if you'd seen him, this ginormous messy looking chap, and then heard him talk, you woulda been in stitches. He looks at me and goes, in this really soft voice, "I nearly knocked them down. I can't believe I managed to miss them."

'"Lucky all right," I said to him. "Cute little guys aren't they? What are you going to do with them?" Van Man gets a panicked look on his face and says, "Oh Jesus, the wife's gonna kill me if I take home any more strays. Suppose I'll have to take them to the pound." We kept chatting for a while. He moved the van over and let everyone else out and we played with the puppies. I went and got them some chicken from the deli and we watched them demolish the food like they hadn't eaten for days. They're so funny looking, some kind of terrier, most likely mutts, but cute as anything. Anyway, I had to go then, but I gave him my number and asked him to keep me updated.'

'So that's him texting you now? What does he say?'

'Says he's rung round all the pounds and put notices up on some websites, but seems like no one's reported them missing. His wife's taking them to the pound in the morning.'

'Text him back. Say we'll take them.'

Gary's grin was so wide. 'Really? You don't mind?'

I shook my head. 'Course I don't. Sure, the garden out back is big enough, and I love going for walks, so why not do it with a couple of dogs. We'll go and get them tomorrow if he's off. Crap, though, it's a bit late to be texting someone, isn't it? Still. Go on. Do it.'

The text was sent before I finished the sentence.

≈

Van Man's name was actually Paul, and he lived in Blanchardstown with his wife, their ten-year-old daughter, three cats, four dogs, two rabbits and a hamster. The house was full of animal bowls and beds, and in the back garden he had constructed a huge hutch for the rabbits. It all would have seemed lively and warm, had we not been greeted by sad faces on arrival.

'I dunno what to say,' Paul said as soon as he opened the door. 'I'm so sorry. Oh God.' He extended a hand to me. 'You must be Viv.'

I shook his hand. 'Nice to meet you, but... what's the matter?'

He drew open the door and we followed him through the house and to the back garden, where a small hole had been dug. Beside it were two puppies, one lying motionless next to the hole, the other whining alongside, nudging the dead dog.

'Come away now little fella,' said Paul, gently lifting the pup. 'Nothing we can do for her. She's not here any more.' He turned to us. 'She didn't make it, poor little thing. Sure, they were half starved when we found them. This little fella's in bits. We all are. The wife's gone out to get this one sweets to cheer her up.' Paul indicated his daughter.

I took the dog from Paul's arms, letting Paul and Gary complete the task of burying the female pup. After a while the dog stopped struggling to get down to his sister. He lay back against my chest, while Paul's little girl laid flowers on the grave and Paul began to recite a prayer.

'Brave little soldier,' I whispered, when the ceremony was finished. 'I think I'll call you Major.'

That night, and every night afterwards, Major slept in our bedroom, on a dog bed on my side of the room. And if he whined, as he often did in those first weeks, I would cradle him until he fell asleep. That was it – that was our life, and I loved it – Gary, Major and me.
Late

I didn't notice, at first, that my period was late. It had been irregular from the moment I stopped taking my pill, and sometimes I kept a calendar; most of the time I didn't. It wasn't until we were in the supermarket one afternoon and Gary asked, 'Do you need tampons?' that it occurred to me I might be late.

I began to count, ticking off day after day in my diary, wishing away the other symptoms, wishing away the warm feeling that was growing in my belly. A month passed that way before I bought the pregnancy tests. It was one of those weekends when Gary seemed to be everywhere. Even when I got up during the night, he woke at the same time as me, saying, 'You have to pee? I have to pee too.'

It wasn't until Sunday morning, when he was quiet and happy with the newspapers, that I went to the bathroom to take the tests. Major began to scratch at the door and I let him in while I waited. At one point he tried to take the stick from my hand, and I had to keep it behind my back, pushing him gently away every time he came near.

'Go play with Daddy,' I kept saying. 'Daddy has your ball.'

But Major wouldn't leave.

I had purchased three kits, and after the first one came up positive I shooed Major from the room so I could fully concentrate on the next two. By concentrate, what I mean is that I crossed my fingers and wished for the tests to show a negative result. He kept scratching at the bathroom door and I hated ignoring him, but I had to do all three tests. I had to. I had to be sure.

Gary didn't hear Major's scratching. Gary rarely heard anything when he was reading.

I emerged from the bathroom, stuffing the tests into a bag, stuffing the bag into the back of the wardrobe while Major padded along behind me. He looked bemusedly at me while I spent the next five minutes practicing passive faces by the bedroom mirror. After that I let Major out into the back garden and stayed with him a while, throwing his ball for him, trying to laugh and smile the way I usually would at his antics.

When I went back into the kitchen I sat opposite my husband, wondering: how to tell him I was pregnant; w _hether_ to tell him I was pregnant.

Gary's eyes widened. He said, 'McEvoy – that's your surname.'

I shrugged and went on with the magazine I was pretending to read. Eventually he pushed the paper across the table towards me. I suppose I must have had some instinct, because before I even began to read I held the paper up so that it covered my face.

It was just a short report, on the seventh page, about my father's conviction. Photos had been found on his PC, and hard copies had been found in his home (which in the article was listed as a flat on the quays in Dublin). He had been charged, and found guilty of possessing child pornography. He received a suspended sentence, and was ordered to donate money to an unspecified charity. I kept my expression blank as I lowered the paper and pushed it back to Gary.

'Thank God he's no relation,' I said, and got up to wash the breakfast dishes.

I thought about Oisín while I scrubbed scrambled egg from the frying pan. I don't know why, but I suddenly felt how I had when I last spoke to him. Maybe because I felt voiceless. Maybe because I wanted to turn around, and scream it all out to Gary, scream the whole truth to him.

But once again, as with my last conversations with Oisín, I couldn't quite work up the nerve. I thought, what was the point? Because our voices – mine, Carina's, Sarah's – our voices didn't matter, anyway. Photographs can't speak. Dead girls can't speak. The injured are forgotten, and the world goes on as before.
≈

Downstairs, the shop is closing. I can hear Gary saying goodbye to Rose and shutting the door behind her. I can imagine what he'll do next: spend a few minutes sorting out the cash, tidy up, maybe walk towards the door that leads to the flat, think better of that, and go to his brother's house for another night.

I want to go down there. I want to tell him to come home. I want to tell him about my nightmares, the way I imagine Carina did, with Oisín. For years they've been the same. One that recurs, too often, is one in which Carina is six. She is always six in the dreams I have now.

She's standing and turning on the gazebo, because we feel him watching us play. It's the third day he's been there and I know, by now, that it's my time to say goodbye. I walk into the woods with my book and my doll, leaving her. As she's watching me go, a look crosses her eyes. And in that look I see, so clearly, how innocence can be lost before you even know the meaning of the word.

I thought that the pregnancy would change my nightmares. I thought that Gary would become a part of them. Those arms of Gary's, arms I think of as warm, and strong, and protective... I would go to sleep, expecting to see them become long, and gangling, and greedy. But each night, though nightmares come, they never feature Gary.

I need to talk to him. I know that I do. I'll start by telling him that I'm going to do as he suggested, and name her Carina. It will be a reminder, to be better to this Carina, to look after her as she deserves. After that... after that I don't know what I'll say. I only know that I will say it. Soon.

But just for now, just for a little while more, I'm going to read Sleeping Beauty to my belly.

Maybe it's because of the gifts that the fairies bestow upon the baby. Maybe it's the idea that you can shape a person's life by magic, by simply wishing. I know, because of Carina's life, that there's no truth in this really, but I want to believe it nonetheless. I need to believe it now.

So I'm going to allow myself to wish for my daughter. And I'm going to make myself believe that the wishes will come true. There will be no thirteenth gift to wish her ill. I won't even be selfish enough to ask for twelve.

For my daughter I wish only three things. I wish her safety, I wish her happiness, and I wish for her a world full of people who are nothing like me.

## From the Author

I released Watching Them quite some time ago, with a whisper rather than a shout. Any of the writers out there will know that marketing is a necessary part of the publishing game. For me, it's hard to approach bloggers, reviewers and the readers out there with confidence. Flogging my work does not come naturally. With Watching Them, however, the marketing side of things was something I faced with even more reluctance than usual. So I didn't – market it, I mean. I approached no bloggers or reviewers. I just... put it up for sale. Even that much took me a long time.

I wrote Watching Them after The Shouting Man, but before the first Wolf Land book. A long time passed between writing and publishing. So why the wait?

People write books for many reasons. Some books are written to entertain, or to inform. Some books (or so the rumours say) are even written to make money. But some books are written just because they have to be. And Watching Them is one such book.

In Vivienne I created a narrator who I loved, and I hated. I created a narrator who would never want me to share this story with the world.

It took me a long time to go against Vivienne's reluctance, and publish. And now, because it never felt natural to try to sell this book, I've decided to make the ebook version free.

This is nothing like my works of fantasy. There are no werewolves. There are no witches. There are just people: real, flawed people. If you download it and connect with those people... great. If you download it and don't understand those people... well that may be even better, because it means you've lived a different sort of life to the characters in the book.

And for anyone who enjoys Oisín's chapters, and his astronomical references ... these were some of my favourite sections to write. There has to be beauty and hope, even in a sad story. Writing about the stars and learning about Eta Carinae was my way of finding - and hopefully injecting - some joy.

Thank you for reading,

Fiona McShane

Website: https://fionamcshanewrites.com

Email: fionamcshanewrites@gmail.com

