Jake, meanwhile, had been having a profoundly disappointing evening. By now, in his personal schedule, Lissa would have been incredibly impressed by how he knew everyone, she’d have been terrified on the very high ride and he’d have had to comfort her with an arm around her, and she’d have thrown her arms around his neck when he’d easily won her the biggest toy in the fair, and well, it was a pretty short trip from there back home, he reckoned. But it was worse than that. His entire gift of the gab had deserted him. He’d always found it easy to chat with women; they always liked him. He had treated it like a game, and it had worked.

Lissa hadn’t felt like a game, and that had made it absolutely impossible. He couldn’t think straight. And now Ginty MacGuire was throwing another wrench in the works.

“Hi, Ginty,” he said, in a resigned tone of voice.

“Who’s this?” said Ginty, as if she didn’t know.

“Oh, you know . . . this is Lissa? She’s doing Cormac’s job?”

“Where are you from?” said Ginty.

“London,” said Lissa, putting her hand out. The other girls looked at that and sniggered.

“No, I mean, where are you really from?” said Ginty.

“London,” said Lissa shortly, bristling. The evening, which had started so promisingly, had taken a sour turn. The brightly painted machines and stalls of the fair suddenly looked tawdry, chipped under the bright lights, grubby and cheap.

“Mm-hmm,” said Ginty, undaunted. She liked to think of herself as someone who was straight with others and told them what she thought of them to their faces. Not everyone saw this as quite as much of a virtue as she did.

“So, Jakes, are you coming down to the bonfire? Everyone’s going.”

Too late, Jake remembered that the previous year he had spent the evening of the fair—several evenings, in fact (it wasn’t as if there was so much entertainment that came to Kirrinfief that anyone went only once)—down in the sand dunes, rather close to Ginty. Extremely close, in fact.

“Um . . .”

“What’s the matter, didn’t have a good time last year? Don’t you remember?” Ginty was pouting now. She turned to Lissa. “Jake and I have always been . . . friends . . .”

The other girls sniggered on.

“They’ve lit the bonfire,” Ginty went on. She bit her lip seductively. “It’s pretty hot down there.”

Jake was absolutely scarlet.

“Do you know,” said Lissa, “I’m feeling pretty tired.”

“I’ll take you home?” said Jake desperately.

“But you’ll miss it!” said Ginty.

Lissa looked up. “You know what?” she said. “It’s okay. You go.”

Chapter 56