The regulars were starting to glance over, conversations falling away, but I couldn’t get my voice back down. I always have the coolest head in any fight and the lowest blood-alcohol level in any pub. This evening was way off course, and it was much too late to salvage it. “What’s the only thing that changed in between? Da went on a bender and tried to break into the Dalys’ gaff at two in the morning, and then the whole classy bunch of yous had a screaming knock-down-drag-out row in the middle of the street. You remember that night, Melly. The whole Place remembers that night. Why wouldn’t Rosie back out, after that? Who wants that for in-laws? Who wants that kind of blood in her children?”
Carmel said, very quietly and still with no expression at all, “Is that why you never came home? Because you’ve thought that all this time?”
“If Da had been decent,” I said. “If he hadn’t been a drunk, or even if he’d just bothered to be discreet about it. If Ma hadn’t been Ma. If Shay hadn’t been in and out of trouble every day of the week. If we’d been different.”
Kevin said, bewildered, “But if Rosie didn’t go anywhere-”
I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. The whole day had hit me, all of a sudden, and I was so exhausted that I felt like my legs were melting into the ratty carpet. I said, “Rosie dumped me because my family was a bunch of animals. And I don’t blame her.”
Jackie said, and I heard the hurt in her voice, “Ah, that’s not on, Francis. That’s not fair.”
Shay said, “Rosie Daly had no problems with me, pal. Trust me on that.”
He had himself back under control; he had eased back in his chair, and the red had faded off his cheekbones. It was the way he said it: that arrogant spark in his eyes, that lazy little smirk curving around the corners of his mouth. I said, “What are you talking about?”
“She was a lovely girl, was Rosie. Very friendly; very sociable, is that the word I’m after?”
I wasn’t tired any more. I said, “If you’re going to talk dirt about a girl who’s not here to fight her own corner, at least do it straight out, like a man. If you don’t have the guts to do that, then shut your gob.”
The barman brought down a glass on the bar with a bang. “Hey! Yous lot! That’ll do. Settle down now or you’re all barred.”
Shay said, “I’m only complimenting your taste. Great tits, great arse and a great attitude. She was a right little goer, wasn’t she? Zero to sixty in no time flat.”
A sharp voice somewhere at the back of my brain was warning me to walk away, but it reached me fuzzy and vague through all those layers of booze. I said, “Rosie wouldn’t have touched you with someone else’s.”
“Think again, pal. She did a lot more than touch. Did you never smell me off her, once you got her stripped down?”
I had him hauled up off his chair by his shirtfront and I had my fist pulled back for the punch when the others swung into action, with that instant, clenched efficiency that only drunks’ kids have. Carmel got in between us, Kevin grabbed my punching arm and Jackie whipped drinks out of harm’s way. Shay wrenched my other hand off his shirt-I heard something rip-and we both went stumbling backwards. Carmel got Shay by the shoulders, sat him neatly back down and held him there, blocking his view of me and talking soothing crap into his face. Kevin and Jackie caught me under the arms and had me turned around and halfway to the door before I got my balance back and figured out what was happening.
I said, “Get off. Get off me,” but they kept moving. I tried to shake them away, but Jackie had made sure she was stuck to me tightly enough that I couldn’t get rid of her without hurting her, and I was still a lot of drink away from that. Shay shouted something vicious over Carmel’s shoulder, she upped the shushing noises, and then Kevin and Jackie had maneuvered me expertly around the tables and stools and the blank-faced regulars and we were outside, in the rush of cold sharp air on the street corner, with the door slamming behind us.
I said, “What the fuck?”
Jackie said peacefully, like she was talking to a child, “Ah, Francis. Sure, you know yous can’t be fighting in there.”
“That arsehole was asking for a punch in the gob, Jackie. Begging for it. You heard him. Tell me he doesn’t deserve everything I can dish out.”
“He does, of course, but you can’t be wrecking the place. Will we go for a walk?”
“So what are you dragging me out for? Shay’s the one who-”
They linked my arms and started walking. “You’ll feel better out here in the fresh air,” Jackie told me reassuringly.
“No. No. I was having a quiet pint on my own, doing no harm to anyone, till that prick walked in and started causing hassle. Did you hear what he said?”
Kevin said, “He’s locked, and he was being a total dickhead. What are you, surprised?”
“So why the hell am I the one out on my ear?” I knew I sounded like a kid whining He started it, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Kevin said, “It’s Shay’s local. He’s there every other night.”
