In the garden Steve dabbed at his nose with a paper napkin and snorted and grimaced. ‘What the fuck, Richard?’

‘You shouldn’t have fucked your girlfriend in his father’s bed, man,’ Richard said.

‘How the fuck was I supposed to know it was his father’s bed? He’s SUCH A CUNT!’

Steve kicked at a flowerpot. It broke with a dull, earthy shatter.

Barry arrived at the door. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘Fuck you!’ Steve said.

‘Get the fuck out of my house, you bald little cunt,’ Barry said.

Steve picked up another flowerpot and put it through the windscreen of Barry’s car.

You didn’t slag Stephen O’Brien about his hair.

Somehow, Richard Culhane calmed the situation down. He was usually able to do this. His was always the voice of reason, the voice of moderation. He convinced Stephen to pay for a replacement windscreen. He convinced him to apologize for having sex in Barry’s father’s bed. He convinced Barry to let Steve and Clodagh stay at the party, since they had nowhere else to go. He convinced Barry to apologize to Clodagh for calling her a bitch.

‘You’re such a hero,’ Clodagh told Richard. ‘Seriously.’ To Barry she said, ‘Sorry to cause so much D-R-A-M-A at your party, like.’

She spelled it out: D-R-A-M-A.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

PART TWO

La Belle Epoque

23

We all went to Conor’s funeral. Because of the need for an autopsy, it wasn’t held until almost two weeks after the night he died. The weather was astonishing: blue skies and pewter sunlight. Mourners sweated in their sombre clothes. The funeral was a media event, although Eileen and Brendan Harris had done all they could to prevent this from happening. It was also a rugby funeral: the Church of the Sacred Heart in Donnybrook was packed with the Senior Cup teams from five Dublin schools, along with their friends, families, girlfriends and former coaches. Some of the players from the Ireland squad were there. Conor’s teachers from Brookfield sat up front. There were golfing friends of Brendan Harris’s and women from Eileen Harris’s Thursday quilting workshop. The staff of the four restaurants owned by the Harrises were there. Maurice O’Brien and his wife and Barry’s father, Gerard Fox, were there. Peter and Katherine Culhane sat somewhere in the middle. It was rumoured, later, that Gerald Clinch, Peter Culhane’s solicitor, had been at Conor’s funeral, but I didn’t see him on the day, nor would I have known what he looked like at that point, before his picture had appeared in the papers.

Laura Haines was there, sitting towards the back with her mother and father, wearing sunglasses to hide the puffiness of her eyes.

The Brookfield colours were much in evidence. Conor’s coffin was draped in a Brookfield jersey as it was borne down the aisle at the end of the service. Eileen hadn’t wanted this, but Brendan had said, ‘It was a part of who he was. And people will expect it.’

‘We’re not doing this for other people,’ Eileen said.