‘Working. Vet stuff. You know,’ Conor said.
‘Sure, sure.’ Patrick was eyeing him narrowly, half-smiling. Conor felt like there was a joke here somewhere – a joke he wasn’t in on.
‘It’s just what I do,’ he said gruffly.
‘Of course it is, son, of course it is. And it’s a good thing you do, you know. I’m proud of you. And now you’re home – well, I’d like you to keep in touch.’
Son? Who the hell did he think he was?
If Patrick noticed Conor’s irritation then he hid it well. He reached into his jacket and produced a silver clip of business cards. ‘Here. Take it.’ Conor took the card Patrick offered and turned it over in his fingers. Just Patrick’s name and a mobile number.
‘A business card without a business,’ Conor commented.
Patrick shrugged. ‘Diversification,’ he said.
Conor managed to avoid Patrick for the last hour, as the champagne flowed. He drifted in and out into the fresh air, and even accepted the offer of a cigarette from one of the barstaff at the door. When he returned inside, the DJ was packing away his gear at the far end of the room and the guests were collecting bags, jackets, coats. Conor went to the toilet and, as he emerged, Christine called over from the door. ‘Patrick!’ She didn’t even look at Conor. ‘Patrick, Simon’s taking us home now. Come kiss the birthday girl goodnight.’
‘Sure I will,’ Patrick smiled. Conor wanted to stay where he was – stay where he was and get good and drunk while the bar was still open – but Patrick, with an insistent arm round his shoulders, pulled him out into the street. The last partygoers gradually dispersed. Minicabs milled in the road. Conor hung back moodily while Patrick hugged Ella and Christine goodbye.
Suddenly something caught his attention: the whirr of a camera, and the glint of a lens, from a car parked across the street. Conor knew cameras. That wasn’t any partygoer’s Polaroid or Boots throwaway. That was serious hardware – a funny thing to bring to a birthday party. Conor tried to squint through the black windscreen of the car but he could make nothing out in the 1am darkness.
Ella interrupted him with a hug and a warm kiss on his cheek.
‘You didn’t have much fun,’ she said, apologetically.
He managed a smile. ‘I’m just happy to see you,’ he said, and meant it. ‘Happier than I can say.’
Ella smiled her mother’s smile. ‘Welcome home, Dad,’ she said. Then she was gone. A car door banged and an engine started.
As Simon’s saloon drew away carefully from the kerb, Conor moved cautiously over to the wooden benches outside the pub, where Patrick was sitting smoking a cigarette. Patrick nodded amiably as Conor took a seat beside him.
‘Nice evening,’ he said.
‘It is.’ Conor glanced across the street. The car was still there. He licked his dry lips. ‘Patrick,’ he said.
‘That’s me.’
‘Listen,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t look now, but there’s someone with a camera in—’
He started in surprise as Patrick cut him off with a theatrical roar of laughter. He shook his head and with a flick sent the half-smoked cigarette spinning into the darkness.
Then he looked delightedly at Conor, tongue lolling on his lower lip. ‘The coppers, you mean?’
Conor was bewildered. ‘Coppers? I—’
‘Yeah, the Belfast coppers are still my biggest fans.’ He nudged Conor knowingly, then leaned forward and directed a camp wave towards the glowering parked car. ‘Evening, ladies!’ he called. Then he sat back, chuckling. ‘Don’t worry about it, son. Occupational hazard.’ He slapped Conor’s knee. ‘They watch and watch. But they never see a thing. The bastards,’ he said, with a smile and a wink, ‘can’t lay a finger on me.’
Patrick rose, and straightened the sit of his well-cut trousers, and set his hands on his hips, and sighed.
‘What a night,’ he said, expansively.
Conor said nothing. He had nothing to say – nothing that he could put into words.
SUNSHINE. A weak, watery, February sort of sunshine, but still. Conor stood staring out of the living-room window with a mug of tea cradled to his chest.
‘If you’re not doing anything, Con,’ Christine called from the kitchen, ‘you can fetch some clean glasses out of the washer.’
‘Mm-hm.’
‘And maybe put out some crisps or biscuits or something. Nibbles. There’s a dish here.’
‘Yeah.’
Christine poked her head out through the kitchen door. ‘And if you’re not too busy, Con, d’you think you could take your head out of your arse for a second?’
‘Mm? Okay – will do.’
Christine laughed. Wiping her hands on a tea towel, she came offer to stand beside him in the window bay. He blinked at her as she took his arm in hers.
‘Look at you,’ she said. ‘On another planet. She was a little devil last night, wasn’t she?’
‘Mm?’ For a second he was lost. He was thinking of that night – was it only four months since? Four months ago that Patrick had been standing in the street – right there – covered in another man’s blood.
Colm’s blood.
‘Ella.’ Christine tutted at him. ‘You remember her. Still, if she can cry like that there can’t be much wrong with her. That’s what my nan would’ve said.’
Conor smiled. That morning he’d stood over the baby’s cot for a full half hour, just watching her sleep – impossibly tiny, impossibly beautiful – his daughter. She was snoring; she got that from her mother, along with those eyes. He’d wondered what he’d ever done to deserve her. And he’d wondered if he could ever be the father she deserved.
‘Barely two weeks old,’ he said. ‘What in the world has she got to cry about?’
‘Listen at you. The wise old man.’
‘It’s the sleeplessness. Makes me look venerable.’
‘Makes you look wrinkly, you mean.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘We’ll have an early night, tonight, will we?’
‘And we’ll have earned it, too.’ He kissed the top of her head.
Christine let go of his arm. ‘C’mon, soldier, let’s get this place shipshape. There’s a bag of those posh crisps in the cupboard. I put three cans of your dad’s beer in the fridge – will that be enough?’
‘Yes. He’s slowed down lately.’
Conor started to walk towards the kitchen but Christine stopped him with a hand on his arm. ‘God, look,’ she laughed, taking up an orange cushion from the sofa. ‘Should I hide this? Should I have had more green about the place?’
Conor smiled. ‘It might not take much to start my folks off fighting,’ he said, taking the cushion from her, ‘but I don’t think even they could take your taste in soft furnishings as an incitement to riot.’
‘Even your ma?’
Conor paused. ‘Best to be on the safe side.’ He punted the orange cushion out of sight behind