She gave me an impressed look that was only half put on. “La-di-da!”

I grinned and wound one of her curls around my finger. “I’ve a couple more nixers coming up this week; I’ll have the cash. Nothing but the best for my girl. I’d get you a limo if I could, but that’ll have to wait. Maybe for your birthday, yeah?”

She smiled back, but it was an absent smile; she wasn’t in the mood for messing. “Meet in Number Sixteen?”

I shook my head. “The Shaughnessys have been hanging out there a lot, the last while. I don’t fancy running into them.” The Shaughnessy brothers were harmless, but they were also loud and thick and mostly stoned, and it would take way too long to get it through their heads why they needed to shut up and pretend they hadn’t seen us. “Top of the road?”

“We’ll get seen.”

“Not after midnight on a Sunday. Who’ll be out, except us and the Shaughnessy eejits?”

“All it’d take is one person. And anyway, what if it’s raining?”

This wasn’t like Rosie, this kind of edginess; mostly she didn’t know what nerves were. I said, “We don’t have to settle it now. We’ll see how the weather’s shaping up next week, decide then.”

Rosie shook her head. “We shouldn’t meet up again, not till we go. I don’t want my da getting suspicious.”

“If he hasn’t by now . . .”

“I know. I know. I just—God, Francis, those tickets . . .” Her hand went back to her pocket. “It’s this close to real. I don’t want us relaxing, even for a second, in case something goes wrong.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Someone stopping us.”

“No one’s going to stop us.”

“Yeah,” Rosie said. She bit down on her fingernail, and for a second her eyes slipped away from mine. “I know. We’ll be grand.”

I said, “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Let’s meet up at the top of the road, like you said, unless it’s lashing rain. Then we’ll go for Number Sixteen; the lads won’t be out if the weather’s awful. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Rosie. Look at me. Are you feeling guilty about this?”

One corner of her mouth twisted wryly. “I am in my arse. It’s not like we’re doing it just for the laugh; if my da hadn’t acted like such a bleeding muppet about the whole thing, we’d never have thought of this. Why? Are you?”

“Not a chance. Kevin and Jackie are the only ones who’ll miss me, I’ll send them something nice out of my first wages, they’ll be delighted. Are you going to miss your family, is that it? Or the girls?”

She thought about that for a moment. “The girls, yeah, I am. And my family, a bit. But, sure . . . I’ve known for ages that I’d be moving out soon enough. Before we even left school me and Imelda were talking about maybe heading to London ourselves, up until . . .” A fleeting, sideways grin to me. “Up until you and me came up with a better plan. Whatever happened, I’d say sooner or later I’d have been gone. Wouldn’t you?”