Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(45)

“Like what?” Jackie demanded. “Kev?”

Kevin shoved back his stool and said, with a sudden burst of authority, “I’ve had this conversation right up to my tits, and Frank probably has too. I’m going up to the bar. If you’re still talking about this crap when I get back, I’m leaving you the drinks and I’m going home.”

“Will you look at that,” Shay said, one corner of his mouth lifting. “The mouse that roared. Fair play to you, Kev; you’re dead right. We’ll talk about Survivor. Now get us a pint.”

We got another round in, and then another. Hard rain gusted up against the windows, but the barman had the heating up high, and all the weather we got was the cold draft when the door opened. Carmel plucked up the courage to go to the bar and order half a dozen toasted sandwiches, and I realized that the last food I’d had was half of Ma’s fry-up and that I was starving, the ferocious kind of hunger where you could spear something and eat it warm. Shay and I took turns telling jokes that made G&T go down Jackie’s nose and made Carmel squeak and smack our wrists, once she got the punch lines; Kevin did a viciously accurate impression of Ma at Christmas dinner that sent us all into convulsions of hard, helpless, painful laughter. “Stop,” Jackie gasped desperately, flapping a hand at him. “I swear to God, my bladder won’t take it, if you don’t stop I’ll wet myself.”

“She’ll do it,” I said, trying to get my breath back. “And you’ll be the one that has to get a J-cloth and clean up.”

“I don’t know what you’re laughing about,” Shay told me. “This Christmas, you’ll be right there suffering with the rest of us.”

“My bollix. I’ll be safe at home, drinking single malt and laughing every time I think about yous poor suckers.”

“Just you wait, pal. Now that Ma’s got her claws back into you, you think she’ll let go with Christmas just around the corner? Miss her chance to make all of us miserable at once? Just you wait.”

“Want to bet?”

Shay held out a hand. “Fifty quid. You’ll be sat across the table from me for Christmas dinner.”

“You’re on,” I said. We shook on it. His hand was dry and strong and callused, and the grip flicked a spark of static between us. Neither of us flinched.

Carmel said, “D’you know something, Francis, we said we wouldn’t ask you, but I can’t help it—Jackie, would you ever stop that, don’t be pinching me!”

Jackie had got her bladder back under control and was giving Carmel the evil stare of doom. Carmel said, with dignity, “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, he can tell me himself, so he can. Francis, why did you never come back before this?”

I said, “I was too scared that Ma would get the wooden spoon and beat the living shite out of me. Do you blame me?”

Shay snorted. Carmel said, “Ah, seriously, but, Francis. Why?”

She and Kevin and even Jackie—who had asked this question a bunch of times and never got an answer—were gazing at me, tipsy and perplexed and even a little hurt. Shay was picking a fleck of something out of his pint.

I said, “Let me ask yous something. What would you die for?”

“Jaysus,” Kevin said. “You’re a barrel of laughs, aren’t you?”

“Ah, leave him,” Jackie said. “The day that’s in it.”

I said, “Da once told me he’d die for Ireland. Would you do that?”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Da’s stuck in the seventies. No one thinks like that any more.”

“Try it for a second. Just for the crack. Would you?”

He gave me a bemused look. “Like why?”

“Say England invaded all over again.”

“They couldn’t be arsed.”

“If, Kev. Stay with me here.”

“I dunno. I never thought about it.”

“That,” Shay said, not too aggressively, aiming his pint at Kevin, “that right there, that’s what has this country ruined.”

“Me? What’d I do?”

“You and the rest like you. Your whole bloody generation. What do you care about, only Rolexes and Hugo Boss? What else do you think about, even? Francis is right, for once in his life. You’d want to get yourself something you’d die for, pal.”

“For f*ck’s sake,” Kevin said. “What would you die for? Guinness? A good ride?”

Shay shrugged. “Family.”

“What are you on about?” Jackie demanded. “You hate Ma and Da’s guts.”

All five of us burst out laughing; Carmel had to tip her head back and knuckle tears out of her eyes. “I do,” Shay acknowledged, “yeah. But that’s not the point.”

“Would you die for Ireland, yeah?” Kevin asked me. He still sounded a little miffed.

“I would in me hole,” I said, which set everyone off again. “I was posted in Mayo for a while. Have yous ever been to Mayo, have yous? It’s boggers, sheep and scenery. I’m not dying for that.”

“What, then?”

“Like my man Shay says,” I told Kev, waving my glass at Shay, “that’s not the point. The point is that I know.”

“I’d die for the kids,” Carmel said. “God forbid.”