Right index fingernail; she bit at it when she was thinking hard. Those last couple of months, while we made our plans, she’d drawn blood a few times. “I remember,” I said.
“I was watching her, in the mirror on my dressing table. It was Rosie, I knew her since the lot of us were babas together, and all of a sudden she looked like a new person. Like she was older than us; like she was already halfway gone, somewhere else. I felt like we should give her something-a good-bye card, or a St. Christopher medal, maybe. Something for a safe journey.”
I asked, “Did you mention this to anyone?”
“No way,” Mandy said, fast, with a snap in her voice. “No way would I have squelt on her. You know better than that.”
She was sitting up straighter, starting to bristle. “I do, babe,” I said, smiling across at her. “I’m only double-checking, out of habit. Don’t mind me.”
“I talked to Imelda, all right. We both figured yous were eloping. We thought it was dead romantic-teenagers, you know yourself… But I never said a word to anyone else, not even after. We were on your side, Francis. We wanted yous to be happy.”
For one split second I felt like if I turned around I would see them, in the next room: three girls, restless on that edge where everything was just about to happen, sparking with turquoise and electricity and possibilities. “Thanks, honey,” I said. “I appreciate that.”
“I haven’t a clue why she changed her mind. I’d tell you if I did. The two of yous were perfect for each other; I thought for sure…”
Her voice trailed off. “Yeah,” I said. “So did I.”
Mandy said softly, “God, Francis…” Her hands were still holding the same little uniform tunic, not moving, and there was a long invincible current of sadness under her voice. “God, it’s an awful long time ago, isn’t it?”
The road was quiet, only the singsong murmur of one of the little girls explaining something to the other, upstairs, and the rush of wind sweeping a gust of fine rain past the windows. “It is,” I said. “I don’t know how it got to be so long.”
I didn’t tell her. Let my ma do it; she would enjoy every second. We hugged good-bye at the door and I kissed Mandy’s cheek and promised to call round again soon. She smelled of sweet safe things I hadn’t smelt in years, Pears soap and custard creams and cheap perfume.
Kevin was slumped against our railings, looking the way he used to when we were kids and he got left behind for being too little, except that now he had a mobile and he was texting away at top speed. “Girlfriend?” I said, nodding at the phone.
He shrugged. “Sort of, I guess. Not really. I’m not into settling down yet.”
“That means you’ve got a few of them on the go. Kev, you dirty dog.”
He grinned. “So? They all know the story. They’re not into settling down either; we’re just having a laugh. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Nothing at all,” I agreed, “except I thought you were wrangling Ma for me, not playing Fingers of Love with today’s laugh. What happened to that?”
“I’m wrangling her from here. She was doing my head in. If she’d tried to go across to the Dalys, I’d’ve caught her.”
“I don’t want her ringing the world and his wife.”
“She won’t ring anyone, not till she’s called round to Mrs. Daly and got all the sca. She’s doing the washing up and giving out. I tried to give her a hand and she threw a freaker because I put a fork in the drainer wrong way up and someone was gonna fall on it and lose an eye, so I split. Where were you? Were you in with Mandy Brophy?”
I said, “Let’s say you wanted to get from Number Three to the top of the Place, but you couldn’t go out the front door. What would you do?”
“Back door,” Kevin said promptly, going back to texting. “Over the garden walls. Did it a million times.”
“Me too.” I aimed a finger along the line of houses, from Number 3 up to Number 15 at the top. “Six gardens.” Seven, counting the Dalys’. Rosie could be still waiting for me in any one of them.
“Hang on.” Kevin looked up from his phone. “Do you mean now, or way back when?”
“What’s the difference?”
“The Halleys’ bloody dog, that’s the difference. Rambo, remember him? The little bastard bit the arse out of my trousers that time?”
“Jesus,” I said. “I’d forgotten that little fucker. I drop-kicked him once.” Rambo was, naturally, some kind of terrier-based mutt that weighed about five pounds soaking wet. The name had given him a Napoleon complex, complete with territorial issues.
“Now that Number Five’s those eejits and their Teletubby paint, I’d go the way you said”-Kevin pointed along the same line I’d drawn-“but back then, with Rambo waiting to rip me a new one, not a chance. I’d go that way.” He turned, and I followed his finger: down past Number 1, along the high wall at the bottom of the Place, up the even-numbered gardens, over the wall of Number 16 to that lamppost.
I asked, “Why not just come back over the bottom wall and straight up the road? Why would you be arsed with the gardens on our side?”
