‘Then what happened?’

Well. Louise was just sitting there, daydreaming, and her eyes jumping from one place to the next, and taking in everything and taking in nothing. Passing the time.

‘Right.’

Because in the years she had been in Montana or Colorado, or wherever it was, she had been back to Ireland only twice. Once to see her brother’s new house in Athenry, and once to attend the First Holy Communion of her sister’s daughter, Angela.

It was a long journey.

‘Of course. You were very good to come,’ says Birdie.

In the airport Louise was looking at everything but seeing nothing. She was in a dream of snow. A universe of snow. Lost in an infinity of snow. And then it was 7.45, and she noticed that Flight 144 had vanished from the board.

‘And was that bad?’

Oh, that was bad alright. She had to run as fast as she could to catch flight 142, which was six gates away.

‘Goodness!’

And she cursed all the way. Her rucksack flopping on her back and bumping against people as she flew through them. Well, that was terrible. But she got there.

‘You got home?’

No. She got as far as Chicago.

‘Chicago? That’s a long way off.’

Yes. And then Yuri met her at the airport.

‘Yuri?’

A Russian professor. Well, Louise seems to know people everywhere. Marvellous. And Yuri had fleshy jowls, and a cheap, brown leather jacket and matching leather gloves.

‘And his mouth was enormous, Birdie. The lips, teeth and jaws of a donkey. And he talked about Shakespeare, and how one must read plays on the flow of the metre rather than by the meaning of the line, which he said is the mistake the English make!’

Louise couldn’t follow him. And Birdie couldn’t follow Louise either. But Louise was glad to meet Natasha.

Who was Natasha?

Yuri’s girlfriend.

‘Of course.’

They had both agreed to let Louise stay overnight because, you see, what with the flight from Mississippi or wherever, and it being late, well, Louise couldn’t get her Dublin flight until the following day. And apparently Yuri’s exotic lips, which pressed against her cheek in a flirtatious kiss, made her pity everyone who spent all their money on big bungalows in east Galway.

‘I’m not quite with you, Louise,’ says Birdie.

‘He was romantic, Birdie. That was the point. Lord, Yuri was dangerous. If you found yourself alone with him.’

‘And as Natasha said, it’s not just his lips that were like the donkey. Oh Jesus, Birdie! I’m terribly sorry.’

Sorry for what, Birdie wanted to know. Sure there was nothing to be sorry about. Birdie was only delighted to be as far away as possible from Gussie’s bed, and from all the lime-green curtains of the hospice ward, which sheltered the dying from each other, when they wanted moments of privacy with their families. Birdie was only too happy to be transported into Natasha’s life in Chicago with its amber jewellery and the large, green, frog cushion on the bed. The wooden floors. The giant television. An orange parrot in a cage. A bicycle in the hall. Bananas hanging from a blue string over the wooden kitchen table. Pink carnations in a vase over the cooker. And Yuri’s room where Natasha was sleeping, with the Star Wars duvet. The big open world of an American apartment.