“Yuppies are your bread and butter, pal. When they become extinct, so do you. Who’s going to buy big-dick tellys once they’re all on the dole? How well does a rent boy live if the johns go broke?”

Jackie smacked Shay’s arm. “Ah, here, you. That’s disgusting, that is.” Carmel put up a hand to screen her face and mouthed Drunk at me, extravagantly and apologetically, but she had had three Babychams herself and she used the wrong hand. Shay ignored both of them.

“This country’s built on nothing but bullshit and good PR. One kick and it’ll fall apart, and the kick’s coming.”

“I don’t know what you’re so pleased about,” Kevin said sulkily. He was a little the worse for wear, too, but instead of making him aggressive it had turned him inwards; he was slouched over the table, staring moodily into his glass. “If there’s a crash, you’re going down with all the rest of us.”

Shay shook his head, grinning. “Ah, no, no, no. Sorry, man; no such luck. I’ve got a plan.”

“You always do. And how far have any of them ever got you?”

Jackie sighed noisily. “Lovely weather we’re having,” she said to me.

Shay told Kevin, “This time’s different.”

“Sure it is.”

“You watch, pal. Just you watch.”

“That sounds lovely,” Carmel said firmly, like a hostess hauling her dinner party back under control. She had pulled her stool up to the table and was sitting very straight, a ladylike pinky lifted off her glass. “Would you not tell us about it?”

After a moment Shay’s eyes moved to her, and he leaned back in his seat and started to laugh. “Ah, Melly,” he said. “You always were the only one could put manners on me. Do yous lot know, when I was a great lump of a teenager, our Carmel slapped me round the back of the legs till I ran, because I called Tracy Long a slut?”

“You deserved it,” Carmel said primly. “That’s no way to talk about a girl.”

“I did. The rest of this shower don’t appreciate you, Melly, but I do. Stick with me, girl. We’ll go places.”

“Where?” said Kevin. “The dole office?”

Shay shifted his focus back to Kevin, with an effort. “Here’s what they don’t tell you,” he said. “In boom times, all the big chances go to the big fish. The workingman can make a living, but it’s only the rich who can get richer.”

Jackie asked, “Could the workingman not enjoy his pint and have a nice chat with his brothers and sisters, no?”

“When things start going bust, that’s when anyone with a brain and a plan can pick up a big old handful of the pieces. And I’ve got those.”