I called up, “It’s my fault, Ma. I dragged her out for a chat. We’ll do the washing up after, how’s that?”

“Hmf. Coming back here like he owns the place, giving orders all round him, with his silver polishing and his washing up and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth . . .” But she didn’t want to give me too much hassle, in case I grabbed Holly and left. She pulled her head back in, even though I could hear her giving out steadily till the window banged down.

The Place was starting to switch on the lights for the evening. We weren’t the only ones who had hit the Christmas decorations hard; the Hearnes’ looked like someone had fired Santa’s grotto at it out of a bazooka, tinsel and reindeer and flashing lights hanging off the ceiling, manic elves and gooey-eyed angels splattered across every visible inch of wall, “HAPPY XMAS” on the window in spray-on snow. Even the yuppies had put up a tasteful stylized tree in blond wood, complete with three Swedish-looking ornaments.

I thought about coming back to this same spot every Sunday evening, watching the Place move through the familiar rhythms of its year. Spring, and the First Communion kids running from house to house, showing off their outfits and comparing their hauls; summer wind, ice-cream vans jingling and all the girls letting their cleavage out to play; admiring the Hearnes’ new reindeer this time next year, and the year after that. The thought made me mildly dizzy, like I was half drunk or fighting a heavy dose of the flu. Presumably Ma would find something new to give out about every week.

“Francis,” Jackie said, tentatively. “Are we all right?”

I had had a first-class rant all planned out, but the thought of belonging here again had dissolved the momentum right out of me. First Olivia and now this: I was getting soft in my old age. “Yeah,” I said. “We’re OK. But when you have kids, I’m buying every one of them a drum kit and a St. Bernard puppy.”

Jackie shot me a quick wary look—she hadn’t been expecting to get off that easy—but she decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Away you go. When I throw them out of the house, I’ll give them your address.”

Behind us, the hall door opened: Shay and Carmel. I had been placing mental bets with myself on how long Shay would be able to go without conversation, not to mention nicotine. “What were yous talking about?” he inquired, dropping into his spot at the top of the steps.

Jackie said, “Holly.”

I said, “I was giving Jackie hassle for bringing her round here without telling me.”