“A job where you work your guts out licking yuppie arse, yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir, and all for the good of some fat corporation that’ll throw you to the wolves as soon as the going gets tough. You make thousands a week for them, and what do you get out of it?”

“I get paid. Next summer I’m going to Australia, I’m going to snorkel around the Great Barrier Reef and eat Skippyburgers and get pissed at barbecues on Bondi Beach with gorgeous Aussie babes, because of that job. What’s not to love?”

Shay laughed, a short scrape. “Better save your money.”

Kevin shrugged. “Plenty more where that came from.”

“There is in me arse. That’s what they want you to believe.”

“Who? What are you on about?”

“Times are changing, pal. Why do you think PJ Lavery—”

“Fucking bogger,” said all of us in unison, except Carmel, who now that she was a mammy said, “Fecking bogger.”

“Why do you think he’s gutting those houses?”

“Who cares?” Kev was getting irritated.

“You should bloody well care. He’s a cute hoor, Lavery; he knows what way the wind’s blowing. He buys those three houses last year for top whack, sends out all those pretty brochures about quaint luxury apartments, and now all of a sudden he’s dropping the whole idea and stripping them for parts?”

“So what? Maybe he’s getting a divorce or having tax hassle or something. How is that my problem?”

Shay stared Kevin out of it for another moment, leaning forward, elbows on the table. Then he laughed again and shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you?” he said, reaching for his pint. “You don’t have a fucking clue. You swallow every bit of shite you’re fed; you think it’ll be all sunshine and roses forever. I can’t wait to see your face.”

Jackie said, “You’re pissed.”

Kevin and Shay never did like each other very much, but there were whole layers here that I was missing. It was like listening to the radio through stiff static: I could pick up just enough to catch the tone, not enough to know what was going on. I couldn’t tell whether the interference came from twenty-two years or eight pints. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes open.

Shay brought his glass down with a flat crack. “I’ll tell you why Lavery’s not wasting his cash on fancy apartments. By the time he’d have them built, no one will have the money to buy them off him. This country’s about to go down the tubes. It’s at the top of the cliff, and it’s about to go over at a hundred an hour.”

“So no apartments,” Kev said, shrugging. “Big deal. They’d only have given Ma more yuppies to bitch about.”