In retrospect, this scene leaves me troubled. There are too many unanswered questions.

Why was Laura with Richard, when she had just started to go out with Conor Harris?

Why was Richard smoking a cigarette, when he had always hated the very idea of smoking?

Why did they sit there in silence in the car, as the students walked past, not looking at each other, not speaking?

I have no answers.

This can’t be happening.

This can’t be happening.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

10

During Conor’s first year at Brookfield Brendan Harris drove his son to school every morning on his way to work. The family had two cars: a brand-new Renault Megane hatchback that belonged to Eileen and a ten-year-old Audi 800 that belonged to Brendan. For the school run, Conor went with Brendan in the Audi.

After a couple of weeks Conor started asking to be dropped at the corner of Mount Merrion Avenue, a couple of hundred yards from the school gates. He said he wanted to walk the rest of the way. Brendan said, ‘That’s ridiculous, Conor. I’m driving in that direction anyway.’

‘But Dad,’ Conor said.

This was a morning in late September 1997 and it was raining heavily. The windscreen wipers went back and forth.

‘If I were you I’d want to be dropped right to the school gates,’ Brendan said. ‘Especially on a morning like this.’

‘But I don’t want people to see.’

‘You don’t want people to see what?’

They were passing St Vincent’s Hospital. Puddles had formed by the kerbs.

Conor looked out of the window and mumbled something.

‘What?’ Brendan said.

‘The car,’ Conor said. ‘I don’t want people to see the car.’

‘What’s wrong with the car?’ Brendan said, piqued.

‘It’s old,’ Conor said.

‘Old?’

‘It’s ten years old. All the other guys’ dads have, like, ’97-reg. cars. Yours is way the oldest car in the car park.’

Brendan pulled the car over. The windscreen wipers kept going back and forth.

‘Right so,’ Brendan said.

‘Right so what?’

‘If you’re actually ashamed to be seen in my car then you might as well get out and walk from here.’

Conor looked around. Rain came off the kerbside puddles in foot-high splashes. It would take him fifteen minutes to walk to Brookfield.

He looked at Brendan to see if he was joking.

Brendan stared straight ahead between the windscreen wipers.

After a few minutes Brendan pulled back out into the traffic. Neither he nor Conor said anything until they reached the gates of the school.

‘Bye, Dad,’ Conor said.

‘I’ll pick you up at four,’ Brendan said.

Conor was thirteen years old.

Two years later Brendan Harris sold the Audi and bought a 1999-reg. BMW. I think Conor was very pleased about this, but I don’t remember him ever mentioning it out loud.

11

Laura Haines wasn’t Conor’s first girlfriend, not by any means. You don’t play rugby for Brookfield College and not have lots of girls.

Kissing a girl on a night out was called scoring. Conor scored with some regularity, but, like almost all the other boys on the Senior Cup team, he rarely slept with anyone. Dublin private-school girls are tetchy about their virginity. ‘A few blow jobs in the bushes,’ was how Conor once summed up the sexual experiences he had had before college.