‘Thanks, Harry, I’ll pay you back when we get to a cash point.’

‘Don’t worry my, friend; it’s the one thing I’ve plenty of!’

Cormac was struck by the thought that, although over the years, word had filtered to him Harry had done well for himself, he had no idea what his friend’s line of work was.

‘You never said what your business was?’

‘Didn’t I?’

‘No.’

No response.

‘Well, what do you make your money from, Harry?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘As long as it’s not illegal, yes!’

‘It’s not illegal.’

‘Then what is it, for Christ’s sake?’

‘It’s shit!’

‘Shit?’

‘Yep.’

‘What kind of shit?’

‘The kind that comes out of your arse!’

‘I don’t understand?’

‘I’m the biggest supplier of toilets in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and more recently South America, the Indian subcontinent and half of Africa. Crossan is the biggest name in toilets since old Thomas Crapper himself!’

‘So you really do make money from shit, then?’

‘Yep’

‘SHIT!’

‘Exactly, my friend!’

The two childhood friends made their way towards O’Donohue’s on Baggot Street. Cormac was filled with a nagging regret that he knew so little of the narrative of Harry’s life. Claire and Annie barely knew each other, when in other circumstances they would have been like sisters; they so easily could have been cousins. Annie had lived such a lonely childhood and here was Harry, his best friend in the world until the age of 17, who had a daughter the same age. Why couldn’t he have confronted his past for the sake of his daughter, for the sake of his friendship with Harry, for Bernadette? The answer troubled him, as it always had. It was straightforward; he had simply been a coward. He sacrificed his adult life and Annie’s childhood because he ran away and he was still running.

‘She left me.’

Harry’s voice snapped him into the present.

‘What?’

‘That’s what you’re plucking up the courage to talk to me about isn’t it?’

Cormac was angry at his own self-absorption.

‘I did wonder why you didn’t answer Claire. And you haven’t really mentioned Roisin at all these last couple of days.’

‘I thought you would have enough on your plate burying you mother, without old Harry Crossan here getting all melancholy on you. You know, I thought we would just have a bit of a laugh like old times and then you might want to come back and visit again. I suppose I didn’t want to scare you off with my misery and all that.’

‘Jesus, Harry! Life’s not like that. You can’t just box off something as big as your wife leaving you, in order to have a good time with an old friend, and then open it back up when you feel like it. What happened? When did she leave?’

The big man sighed and rubbed his hair.

‘I left her first.’

‘But you went back?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Cormac, are you telling this story or am I?’