She shook her head. “I’d only look stupid in designer clothes. I’m not that into money.”

“Come on, Ms. Rafferty. Everyone wants money. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Well, I don’t want to be broke. But it’s not the most important thing in my entire universe. What I want is to be a really good photographer—like good enough that I wouldn’t have to try and explain to you about Pat and Jenny, or about Pat and Conor; I could just show you my photos, and you’d see. If that takes a few years of working at Pierre’s for crap money while I learn, then OK, fair enough. My flat’s nice, my car works, I go out every weekend. Why would I want more money?”

Richie said, “That’s not how the rest of the gang thought, but.”

“Conor did, kind of. He doesn’t care that much about money either. He does web design, and he’s really into it—he says in a hundred years’ time it’ll be one of the great art forms—so he’d do stuff for free, if it was something that got him interested. But the others … no. They never got it. They thought—I think even Jenny thought—I was just being immature, and sooner or later I’d get a grip.”

I said, “That must have been infuriating. Your oldest friends, your own sister, and they thought everything you wanted was worthless.”

Fiona exhaled and pushed her fingers through her hair, trying to find the right words. “Not really. I mean, I’ve got plenty of friends who do get it. The old gang … yeah, I wished we were on the same wavelength, but I didn’t blame them. Everything in the papers, in magazines, on the news … it was like you were a moron, or a freak, if you just wanted to be comfortable and do stuff you love. You weren’t supposed to be thinking about that; you were only supposed to be thinking about getting rich and buying property. I couldn’t really get all pissed off with the others for doing exactly what they were supposed to do.”

She ran her hand over the album. “That’s why we drifted. Not the age gap. Pat and Jenny and Ian and Mac and Shona, they were all doing the things you’re supposed to do. In different ways, so they drifted apart too, but they all wanted what we’re supposed to want. Conor and me, we wanted something else. The others couldn’t understand that. And we didn’t understand them, not really. And that was the end of that.”

She had turned the pages back to that shot of the seven of them on the wall. There was no bitchiness in her voice, just a kind of sad, bewildered wonder at how strange life could be, and how final. I said, “Pat and Conor obviously managed to stay close, though, didn’t they? If Pat picked Conor to be Emma’s godfather. Or was that Jenny’s call?”

“No! That was Pat. I told you, they were best friends. Conor was Pat’s best man. They stayed close.”