She tore Mary’s business card into little pieces. It was better not to have that temptation after what happened last time.
She didn’t know what to do with herself. She didn’t want to tidy. The muffled sound of the radio floated up from her mother’s room downstairs. She would be sitting there among her broken things and saucers of glue. A spider in her web, fiddling, mending.
The gate to the passageway squeaked. Ali went to her window and looked down. A familiar bright head bobbed up the passageway.
As Ali ran down the first flight of stairs, the doorbell rang.
‘I’ll get it!’ her mother shouted.
‘It’s okay,’ Ali called back, ‘it’s only Fitz.’
When she pulled the big door open, Fitz was picking at the labels on the rack of old bells.
‘When you going to get rid of all these?’ she asked.
Ali gave her friend a quick hug and pulled her inside. She could hear her mother moving around on the landing, so she pushed Fitz into the front room. She didn’t want her mother hearing any more than was necessary, especially now that she was being so nice, treating Ali as lovingly and carefully as a piece of her broken porcelain.
‘Have I been in this room?’ asked Fitz, looking around at the stripped single bed, the tilting empty shelves.
‘Davy was staying in it last,’ said Ali.
‘The foxy uncle,’ said Fitz, and ran a palm sensually over the bare mattress before sitting down on it.
Ali laughed obligingly. This is how they always were together, joking, mock-sophisticated, but it felt newly awkward, like she couldn’t find the rhythm of their usual dance.
On the wall over the bed, Davy had stuck pictures from newspapers, a collage of faces that he had added to day by day, like a bulging cloud. He stuck them on with toothpaste. She noticed Mary O’Shea’s picture in the centre, little fangs and horns drawn on in black felt-tip.
Fitz followed her gaze.
‘Did he do all that? He’s mad. Where’s he gone?’
‘He had to go back down to Buleen. Work.’
‘Pity. I think he fancied me.’
Fitz was probably right, but Ali wasn’t going to add to her vanity. When she’d brought Fitz home with her that night she’d noticed how flustered Davy was, tripping over himself to take them out for a drink. If only they’d managed to get served in the Berrybush, they wouldn’t have ended up going to St Brigid’s with the consolation prize of the vodka he’d bought them and those stupid boys. Davy refused to come with them. Why would he drink like a kid when he could sit in a pub, he said. Maybe he wasn’t that keen on Fitz after all.
‘Anyway,’ Fitz was saying, ‘I came here to say I was sorry I said anything to the Guards about the boys, but they were pretty fierce. I was worried they’d do me for underage drinking.’
‘I’m not angry with you,’ said Ali, ‘but it is creepy, don’t you think? I mean … someone else was there that night. And the baby turned up in the shed. I just don’t know. Maybe it was me that did it and I’ve blacked it all out. Have you noticed anything strange about me in the last few months?’
‘No, but I’m noticing it now.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘Unless you’re completely schizophrenic, or something. Ali, you’d know. And I’d certainly know.’
‘You’ll testify in court then?’
Fitz laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘You’ve got to get a grip, sweetie.’
She wanted to tell Fitz about Joan, but where would she even start to explain it all?
‘Aren’t you’re worried about your results?’ said Fitz.
Ali’s first thought was that Fitz somehow knew about Beasley and all the tests they did on her, but as Fitz went on to say how she hadn’t done enough revision, Ali realised she was only talking about the Leaving: the exam results, the thing she’d been so obsessed about before all this. Her future.
‘They’ll be here next week. I can’t believe it. Do you want to meet up? We could go into town …’
Ali imagined sitting with Fitz on a red settee in Bewley’s, eating almond buns, laughing about nothing and watching university boys go by.
‘I can’t go out, Fitz, I can’t see anyone. You could come here. I’m sure Ma would let us have some wine.’
‘I guess I could, but Allanah and Rachel were talking about Captain Americas, which would be fun. Come on.’
‘Don’t worry. You go out. I’ll phone you.’
‘Do that.’
Ali walked her to the door.
When Fitz reached the bottom of the steps she turned and cocked her hand like a gun. ‘Ciao, baby. Don’t take any shit.’
Ali stood for a while with her forehead against the closed door. She missed the way they’d been.
She went back into Davy’s room. She missed him too. Maybe when all this was past, he would come back and get a proper job in Dublin. Anyone could see there was nothing for him in Buleen, only an ugly half-finished bungalow. And the place did something bad to him, made his humour bitter and careless. She stood and looked at the pictures he’d put on the wall until her mother called her to the kitchen for lunch.
Ali ate the soup put in front of her. Tomato, sweet and bland.
‘I talked to Una on the phone just now. She says Joan’s funeral is tomorrow. So quick. But I don’t think she was suggesting we should go.’
Joan’s funeral. Coming back to Dublin had been forced on her. She should be in Buleen, should be there to acknowledge all that she hadn’t done for Joan.
‘I think I should be there, Ma. I spent time with Joan in Buleen. I even spoke to her the night she died.’
‘I’m concerned about you, pet. You’ve been involved in too much – too much grimness.’
‘We could go together. You haven’t been back in a long time.’
‘Ha!’ said her mother. ‘I don’t care if I never see that hole again.’ She quickly put her hand up to her
