He promised himself he would go to see Maggie before he went home. Not to do anything in particular. Just to go and see her for no other reason other than to spend a moment with her without the hatred, the anger, the bitterness. His ear began to throb. His arm ached. He turned and limped towards Bernadette.

He slowed his pace just on the edge of Grafton Street, after the young busker thanked him for his first payment of the day, and told him he was only ten minutes from the bridge. Cormac stayed and listened to the scruffy boy’s rather dubious rendition of U2’s ‘All I Want is You.’ He worried for the boy’s ability to add to the two Euros he had deposited onto his guitar case. In doing so, Cormac took care to avoid eye contact with the boy’s underfed terrier that was showing too much interest in Harry’s jacket for his liking. By the time he had reached the end of Grafton Street at 9:45 a.m., he had passed four more U2 impersonators, two very impressive James Joyce’s, a man who appeared to be sculpting dogs out of a small mountain of sand, and a transvestite on stilts. Cormac began to feel Dublin was a city he would like to visit more often. As he passed Molly Malone and Trinity College, his doubts turned to certainty that she would not be there to meet him. After all, why should she? How arrogantly deluded was he to think he could just turn up in her life like that? Threaten her husband in a pub, and then ask her to drop everything to come and meet him? Most definitely she would have had plans for today. Work, even. In his eagerness to see her, he had said 10 o’clock. Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to arrange a time in the evening when she might just be free? Had he even stipulated that it was 10 in the morning and not the evening? By the time he reached the Ha’Penny Bridge with five minutes to spare, he was absolutely convinced he was in for a long wait, and even then, it was unlikely she would turn up tonight!

She was there waiting for him.

19

On O’Connell Bridge, just downstream, a man with a bandaged hand watched Cormac check his reflection in the shop window. It was a risk to be so close, but it was one he had been taking for such a long time, it had become as necessary as breathing for him. He wished he could have stayed longer, but he had an appointment to keep. The ‘Chemist’ did not like to be kept waiting. Besides, he was eager to see what he could get for his money. He picked up his holdall and melted into the morning throng.

She was leaning over the railings of the bridge. Her arms folded, standing on one leg, with the other tucked in behind her knee. She was gazing into the stillness of the Liffey water. It was a pose he recognised. She was someone who had gotten used to waiting. She hadn’t noticed his presence, so he stole a moment just to look at her. It was as if time had been unable to leave its mark on her. Her hair was shorter than when she’d been a girl but longer than he remembered from last night. It hung down over her left eye and was tucked behind her right ear. The clothes she wore, a light business suit, were the only indication that she was not the girl who had smiled shyly at him before agreeing to dance with him at Lalor’s all those years ago.