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Finn gave me a concerned glance. “You okay, sweetheart?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s just been a bit of a day I think, and headbutting Kathleen O’Halloran probably hasn’t helped; her skull’s so thick it was like nutting a concrete bollard.”
Then just when I thought we finally had something approaching a plan, Sinéad suddenly stood up. “And do I not get a say in this, like?” she asked, and all the aggression and fury that had started to diminish over the last hour rushed back like a tidal wave.
“Love, we need to do this,” Niamh started, but Sinéad was clearly having none of it.
“Don’t ‘love’ me,” she spat. “You’re all sitting here making these big plans but no one’s asked me what I want to do, have they? And maybe I don’t want to go to fuckin’ Spain. Maybe, oh I dunno, I can just have a life here? Like with my band, and my mates, and not in some shithole country with a load of wankers!”
Niamh placed a restraining hand on her younger sister’s shoulder, but it was angrily shrugged away.
“Maybe if youse both go away, it’ll all go away, yeah?” Sinéad raised her voice and glared at me and Finn as she continued, “‘Cos we were okay, you know? We were all okay before Finn came back and then all this shite started up again and it’s not fucking fair!”
My head began to throb in earnest. I wanted to be strolling down the main street in Santa Marita, hand in hand with Finn and counting down to the Christmas celebrations. Even my hardened atheist heart could find beauty in the delicate, sparkling lights in every shop window, or enjoy holding a chocolate caliente whilst watching the ceremony of the Arrival of the Magi as they were rowed across the harbour in bejewelled and velvet-gowned splendour, with their flaming torches blazing in the soft moonlight.
I wanted to be barefoot and back at work in my studio, finishing at dusk to collect Finn from his job then spending long, tranquil hours curled in his arms.
I wanted us both to be warm and safe and content.
What I absolutely didn’t want was to be bloodied, aching and chilled to the bone whilst doing my best impression of a sitting duck, in a pub that appeared to be located six yards up the arsehole of the universe. And I certainly didn’t want to sit there in silence whilst a stroppy, terrified teenager tried to dictate my future, and I had most definitely had enough.
It was time for a blitzkrieg.
I gathered up the very last remaining shreds of my patience and energy and turned on Sinéad. “You know I said you and I needed to talk, lady? Well we’re going to have it now. Right this fucking minute. And do you want to know why? Because everything was going okay for us too, until the night the press found out where we were.” Which wasn’t entirely accurate, but I wasn’t going for fact at this point; I was going for impact.
“Oh what, so you reckon this is my fault now?” Sinéad demanded, managing to look both utterly incredulous and guilty as sin.
“Not entirely, no, but you’ve definitely been a highly effective facilitator in the whole process,” I said, before Niamh or Finn could leap in with any kind of appeasement. “Do you know if this place has an empty room?” I asked, and Feargal frowned as he thought.
“Um, well the whole place has been hired for this do, so I reckon the lounge’ll still be free -”
“Excellent. That’ll do.” I got to my feet. “Has anyone got a pen?”
“Just give me a sec...” Niamh said, and rummaged around in the bottom of Sol’s voluminous changing bag. “I’ve probably got about ten in here. Ooh, and a teaspoon and… ah, would you look at that Fearg, the spare house key! I wondered where that had gone. There you go. It’s just a black biro - is that okay?”
“Perfect, thank you. Just one last thing. A canvas.” I pulled a poster from the wall behind me that promoted a performance by a group calling themselves ‘Neon Tiger’, creatively described in an off-centre Comic Sans banner as ‘modern rock band with girl singer’. The barman glared at me for my act of vandalism but as the gig had taken place in March I reckoned the dog-eared sign had fulfilled its use. I gave him a cheerful nod of thanks.
Finn was watching me with ill-disguised amusement. “Do I want to know?” he asked under his breath.
“Definitely not,” I said. “The last thing I need right now is your ridiculously forgiving nature getting in the way. It’s past due that I had a one-to-one chat with her.”
“Er, I am here, you know,” Sinéad scowled.
“Oh believe me, we’re more than aware of that,” I said. She tried to meet my gaze with a withering glare but behind that impressive carapace of insolence there was only fear; fear of loss, of the O’Hallorans, of an unknowable future. She was an exhausted wild animal nearly run to earth, and if I was right all I would need to do was deliver the coup de grâce. I only hoped I could do it right.
*****
As I’d expected, the lounge of the club was as charmless and grubby as the rest of the establishment, but at least it gave us the privacy I needed.
“So, what did you want me alone for? You some kinda paedo too?” Sinéad sneered as I shut the door behind us.
“That would make me an ephebophile, not a ‘paedo’. And no, I’m not. And neither is your brother, as I think you know,” I said as calmly as I could manage.
“You what?”
“Ephebophile,” I repeated, slowly. “Attracted to adolescents. A paedophile is attracted to pre-pubescents. Now sit down.”
I was treated to the most impressive adolescent eye roll I’d ever seen. “Oh God, whatever you weirdo,” Sinéad sighed, and slumped onto the threadbare blue velour banquette. A puff of dust arose that had me automatically reaching for my inhaler.
