The idea of not being alive constantly hovered on the verge of my consciousness. Not to the extent that I’d ever made any hard-and-fast plans, but it was definitely there. “Yes, I suppose I have.”

“Oh, that’s good. That’s great to hear.” She was visibly relieved. “Thank God for that.”

“It’s the kissssss of DEATH! From Missss-tah…Gold FINGAH!”

“Look, would you like me to give you earplugs?”

“It’s okay, thanks.”

“This heart is COLD. HELOVESONLYGOLD, HELOVESONLYGOOOLLLLLDDDDD!”

“God, I’m off. Let’s get together for dinner some night this week.”

“I’m meeting Leon and Dana on Wednesday night,” I said quickly.

“Good girl, very good. I won’t be around at the weekend, I’m going on retreat, but let’s get together Thursday night? Yes?”

She made me nod yes.

“Good-bye.”

I lay on the couch, trying to recover my crying mood. Upstairs, Ornesto continued belting out the tunes and it sparked off a memory: sometimes Aidan and I used to sing. Not serious singing—God, no—but making stuff up, having fun. Like the night we called Balthazar for home delivery and I was in absolute raptures.

“It’s amazing,” I’d raved. “Balthazar is one of the nicest restaurants in New York—no, scratch that, one of the nicest restaurants in the world—and they’re not too big for their boots to bring their food to your door.”

“This New York is a great place,” Aidan said.

“’Tis,” I agreed. “You’d never get this in Ireland.”

“So why, then, are there so many songs about how sad it is to leave Ireland?”

“Entre nous, mon ami, I haven’t a clue. I think they’re stone mad.”

Aidan, belonging to the Boston-Irish diaspora, knew all about the sad emigrant songs and he started singing “‘Last night as I lay dreaming, I dreamed of Spancil Hill.’” He might have been quite a good singer, but it was hard to tell because he was doing it in his Smurf’s voice, even though he wasn’t shaving.

“‘I dreamed that I was back there and that thought, it made me ill—’”

“They’re not the words.”

“‘—I met the tailor Quigley, he’s as bold as ever still. He used to mend my britches when I lived in Spancil Hill.’”

Abruptly he knocked off the Smurf voice and started really giving it socks.

“‘But now I don’t need my britches mended.

When they wear out, I’ve got a good trick.

I buy myself a brand-new pair

from Banana Repub-a-lik.’”

“Hurray!” I said, clapping and trying to whistle. “More!”

He stood up for the next verse.

“‘And if Anna tears her britches.’” He extended his arm in dramatic fashion.

“‘To tailor Quigley she doesn’t go.

For well-cut britches in cute col-ors,

She goes to Club Monaco.

They’ve tops and bags and jewel-ler-ee

And lots of other good stuff.

I’m told they’re very reasonably priced

and I’m sorry this doesn’t rhyme.’”

“Bravo!” I called. “As Irish people don’t say! More!”

“Okay. Final verse. The sad one.” He hung his head and sang almost in a whisper.

“‘The police sir-ens in the morn-ing,

They blew both loud and shrill.

And I awoke in New York City,

Happy I wasn’t in Spancil Hill.’”

He bowed low to the floor, then raced toward our bedroom.

“Come back!” I called. “I’m enjoying this.”

“You can’t sing this stuff without wearing a bad sweater.”

He reemerged in the most terrible Aran jumper you’ve ever seen. It was a wedding present from Auntie Imelda, Mum’s most competitive sister. (Mum insisted, “She knew it was horrible.”) It made him look like he had a potbelly.

“Will you wear this?” He brandished a tweed cap at me. (Also courtesy of Auntie Imelda.)

“Indeed I will. Now my turn.” To the same tune, I sang:

“‘Back in the county of Claa-are,

My one true love waits for me.

But I met a far nicer one true love

When I came to New York cit-ee.

My one true love in County Clare

Was actually my first cousin.

And if we’d haa-ad a child,

His fingers might have numbered a dozen.’”

“Jesus! You’re good,” Aidan said. “You rock! You rhyme! Freestyle!” Trying to do the funny hand gestures and knee-bendy stuff that rappers do, he said, “I’m a Mick, far from my crib, hanging with my homies, who is wishing they at homie. So you see, I agree, that I’m far across the sea, but I got an U-zi, an SUV, blacked-out windows through which you can’t see. I ain’t bitchin’ that I got no kitchen. Got some dough, got some blow, got my ho, got food from Balthazar ready to go.”

We passed the entire evening making up songs about how New York was a much nicer place than Ireland and how we weren’t at all sad to be across the foamy sea from it. Usually they didn’t rhyme but they were so so funny. At least to us.

35

Outside Diego’s, Leon and Dana were emerging from one cab while I was paying off another. Perfect timing. That used to happen a lot when I was with Aidan and the four of us were meeting up.

There seemed to be some argument with their cabdriver. There usually was.

“Nice driving, buddy,” Dana said, very loudly, bending down to the driver’s window. “Not!”

Dana was loud and opinionated—she attracted a lot of attention wherever she went—and her favorite phrase was “It’s hideous.” Said like this: “At’s had-i-aaaasss.” She said this a lot, because she thought a lot of things were hideous. Especially in her job; she worked in interiors and thought all of her clients had despicable taste.

“Hey, hey, I’ll handle this,” Leon insisted, not very convincingly.

Standing in the shadows of Dana’s height, Leon looked short and plump and anxious. Or maybe he was just short and plump and anxious.

“Don’t tip him, Leon,” Dana ordered. “Leon. Do. Not. Tip. Him. He went totally the wrong way!”