Ger was sprawled on the floor, giving the girls a dramatic based-on-a-true-story account of how he had single-handedly caught an iron girder that had been about to plummet three stories onto someone’s head. All of us were half giddy, on the cider and the nicotine and the company. We had known each other since we were in diapers, but that was the summer when things were changing, faster than we could keep up. Julie had a stripe of blusher down each plump cheek, Rosie had on a new silver pendant that flashed in the sun, Zippy’s voice had finally finished breaking, and all of us were wearing body spray.

“—And then your man says to me, ‘Son,’ he says, ‘if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be walking out of here on my own two feet today—’”

“D’you know what I smell?” Imelda asked no one in particular. “Bollix. Lovely fresh bollix.”

“And you’d recognize those,” Zippy said, grinning at her.

“Dream on. If I ever recognized yours, I’d top meself.”

“It’s not bollix,” I told her. “I was standing right there, saw the whole thing. I’m telling yous, girls, this fella’s a real-life hero.”

“Hero, me arse,” Julie said, nudging Mandy. “The state of him. He wouldn’t have the strength to catch a football, never mind a girder.”

Ger flexed a bicep. “Come over here and say that, you.”

“Not bad,” Imelda said, lifting an eyebrow and tapping ash into an empty can. “Now show us your pecs.”

Mandy squealed. “You dirtbird, you!”

“You’re the dirtbird,” Rosie said. “Pecs is just his chest. What’d you think it was?”

“Where’d you learn words like that?” Des demanded. “I never heard of these pec yokes before.”

“The nuns,” Rosie told him. “They showed us pictures and all. In biology, you know?”

For a second Des looked gobsmacked; then he copped on and threw a bonbon at Rosie. She caught it neatly, tossed it into her mouth and laughed at him. I thought about punching him, but I couldn’t come up with a good excuse.

Imelda gave Ger a little cat grin. “So are we seeing them or not?”

“D’you dare me?”

“I do, yeah. Go on.”

Ger winked at us. Then he stood up, wiggled his eyebrows at the girls and inched his T-shirt coyly up his belly. All of us whooped; the girls started giving him the slow clap. He peeled off the T-shirt, whirled it around his head, tossed it at them and struck a muscle-man pose.

The girls were laughing too hard to keep clapping. They were collapsed together in the corner, heads on each other’s shoulders, holding their stomachs. Imelda was wiping away tears. “You sexy beast, you—”

“Ah, God, I think I’m after rupturing myself—” from Rosie.

“That’s not pecs!” Mandy gasped. “That’s a pair of diddies!”