“Sorry,” I say through choked sobs. “I’m sorry. You can go. Just leave.”
“Pal, I’m not going to leave you here. Not after that.”
“I deserved it, though.”
“Maybe. He didn’t have to go in on you, though. Christ.”
I hold some coarse paper napkins to my eyes, the cheap paper scratching at my skin.
“What happened between you and Lily?” Fiona asks quietly.
I bite my lip, trying to find the words. How can I explain how bad a friend I am to the first real friend I’ve made in years?
“We used to be best friends. We grew up together. But we had one of those intense, weird best-friend relationships where things that were funny or interesting to us were weird and gross to other people. And when we were in third year, I decided that I would rather be popular than be friends with Lily. And I started, sort of … cutting her off.”
Fiona doesn’t say anything, just raises her eyebrows silently.
“Just, you know, not inviting her to stuff. Hoping that if I was just casually mean to her, she’d get the hint and find some other people to be friends with. But she never did. So last year, I…”
I trail off. Is Fiona really ready to hear about what a horrible person I actually am?
“Look,” Fiona says, her arm still around me, “I don’t know why Lily is missing. I don’t know if she’ll come back. But whether she does or doesn’t, you can’t beat yourself to death over how you acted when you were thirteen. Yes, it was stupid and shallow. But, once again: you were thirteen. I got nits when I was thirteen.”
“Nits? At thirteen?” I say, mock-horrified, still sniffling through tears. I squash the urge to correct her. Maybe I started distancing myself from Lily at thirteen, but I dealt the killing blow only a year ago, at fifteen. There are girls in some countries who are married by fifteen.
“Hey, I’m not judging you, friend-dumper,” she nudges me. “Or are you going to dump me now, too?”
“Nah,” I reply, nudging her back. “You can stay.”
We leave Bridey’s some time later. The dark February evening is already settling in, navy as the school uniforms balled up in our bags. Fiona’s arm is looped through mine, protective and strong.
“It’s only half four,” she says. “D’you wanna swing by Basement again? I saw a basket of weird earrings I wouldn’t mind going through.”
“Sure,” I say, and we turn through the cobbled side- street until we’re back at the crumbling behemoth of a shop again.
Only this time, we’re not alone.
Outside the shop is a throng of people, forty at least, all shouting and holding signs up.
“Are they singing?” Fiona asks, her ear cocked to the air.
“They’re chanting,” I reply, utterly dumbfounded.
Each syllable punches through the air, falling into a hard, practised rhythm. We inch closer, keeping our arms linked, our grip tightening on each other. We don’t speak, keeping our ears trained on the crowd.
“OUR! MORALITY! IS NOT! FOR SALE! OUR! MORALITY! IS NOT! FOR SALE! OUR! MORALITY! IS NOT! FOR SALE!”
“What in hell? Where did this come from? Is this…?”
“Yes,” I agree, before she even has the words out. “I think it is.”
“Those guys? Those Americans? Are they here?”
I stand on my tiptoes. I’m a good bit taller than Fiona, so I can see above heads a little easier. I don’t see the Americans. What I do notice is even more disturbing.
“Everyone here is our age.”
“Yeah,” she nods. “And look at the signs.”
I peer closer. They all say “de-Basement” and have a big red “X” over the word. Clever.
At the front of the crowd, Green Boy is trying to confront the crowd while an older woman – presumably the owner – talks frantically on the phone, keeping a worried eye on the crowd.
Fiona and I edge closer to the front, the chanting still vigilantly on beat.
“OUR! MORALITY! IS NOT! FOR SALE!”
Protesting, in one form or another, is a thing you get used to in this city. Here and all over Ireland, I expect. During the abortion referendum a few years ago, the streets were littered with photos of baby hands, baby feet, baby heads. Baby anatomy threading through the street lamps. People with loudspeakers yelling about the rights of the child. Before that, it was the marriage-equality referendum. Joanne took me to a protest where a man stood on a stage and talked about the rights of the family, the importance of marriage, the eyes of God. I held Joanne’s hand and we shouted at him until we were hoarse.
But this is different. This isn’t a referendum. It’s a shop.
Why are these people so young? Why are they protesting about a clothes shop that sells the occasional rubber harness and novelty bong? This kind of stuff has been part of the city for as long as I can remember. Clothes shops that sell photocopied zines and bad CDs at the till. Music shops that sell green LEGALIZE IT! T-shirts. The city is big enough to have a few different alternative “scenes”, small enough that the most talented people in that scene eventually leave. Some of my earliest memories are of Pat coming home in a rage because the singer in his band was leaving to pursue a career in Dublin. Or London. It was always either Dublin or London.
Then Pat left. And Cillian. And Abbie. Now it’s just me and Jo, and I’m sure she’ll be gone pretty soon, too.
“Do you want to hold a sign?”
A short, toothy girl of about eighteen is trying to shove a placard into my hands.
“It’s just, I really need a pee,” she continues.
“Piss off,” I say, shoving it back towards her. She teeters, and Fiona puts an arm out to stop her falling. She gives me a sharp elbow in the ribs.
“Excuse me, why are you protesting this shop?”
“Aren’t you protesting, too?”
“No. We like this shop.”
“Well, do you know that they sell drugs
