Holly did her share by being every bit as beautiful as I could ask for: wisps of hair had come loose from her ponytails and the sun was setting them on fire, and she was singing away to herself in a happy undertone. The neat sweep of her spine and the effortless bend and stretch of her legs worked their way gradually through my muscles, loosening them sweetly like a first-rate spliff. “She’s done all her homework,” I said, after a while. “Want to go to the pictures, after we eat?”

“I’m calling in at home, sure.”

All four of the others still put themselves through the weekly nightmare: Sunday evening with Mammy and Daddy, roast beef and tricolored ice cream and it’s all fun and games until somebody loses their mind. I said, “So get there late. Be a rebel.”

“I said I’d meet Gav in town first, for a pint before he goes off with the lads. If I don’t spend a bit of time with him, he’ll think I’m after getting myself a toy boy. I only called round to see were you all right.”

“Tell him to come too.”

“To some cartoon yoke?”

“Right at his level.”

“Shut up, you,” Jackie said peacefully. “You don’t appreciate Gavin.”

“Definitely not the way you do. But then, I doubt he’d want me appreciating him the way you do.”

“You’re bleeding disgusting, so you are. I was meaning to ask, what happened to your hand?”

“I was saving a screaming virgin from Satanist Nazi bikers.”

“Ah, no, seriously. You didn’t have a fall, did you? After you left us? You were a bit—now, I’m not saying you were langered, but—”

That was when my phone rang, the one my boys and girls in the field use. “Keep an eye on Holly,” I said, fishing it out of my pocket: no name, and I didn’t recognize the number. “I have to take this. Hello?”

I was getting up from the bench when Kevin said awkwardly, “Um, Frank?”

I said, “Sorry, Kev. Not a good time.” I hung up, stashed the phone and sat back down.

Jackie asked, “Was that Kevin?”

“Yep.”

“Are you not in the humor to talk to him, no?”

“No. I’m not.”

She gave me a big-eyed sympathetic look. “It’ll get better, Francis. It will, now.”

I let that one slide. “I’ll tell you what,” Jackie said, inspiration striking. “Come over to Ma and Da’s with me, after you leave Holly back. Shay’ll have sobered up by then, sure, he’ll want to apologize to you, and Carmel’s bringing the kiddies—”

I said, “I don’t think so.”

“Ah, Francis. Why not?”