Chapter Text
Mairéad chopped the head off a salmon so hard that tiny shards of bone pinged off the counter. "Boys, will ye listen to yourselves? He's just trying to make some money for the summer holidays."
Conor shot a glare across at Gavin Madigan, who was handing a box of cream cakes to a customer and so did not notice. "Naw, Mam. He's up to something."
Jock grunted in agreement. "Yah. Something evil, probably."
The date? Third of June. The location? The English Market. The situation? Gavin had just started a new job in the bakery opposite the fishmonger's.
Conor began to debone a trout, keeping a narrowed eye on Gavin all the while. Mairéad whapped him on the back of the head.
"Watch what you're doing, ya fuckin' ape!"
He flipped her off when she turned to help a customer and went on butchering the fish, scowling. Jock sidled over, his hands shoved in the front pocket of his apron.
"Give us your analysis, Con," he muttered, jutting his chin at their enemy.
Conor thought for a moment, the knife hovering above the mauled trout. "Maybe he's tryin' to get close to us because we've got something he wants."
"And he's planning to grab it off us when we're not looking," Jock agreed. "But what do we have?"
Conor shrugged and went back to hacking at the trout. Scales flecked his hands. Jock nudged him.
"Man, you look like a mermaid."
"Wha?"
Jock pointed at his silvered fingers. Conor held them up to catch the light. They both laughed. From the corner of his eye, Conor saw Gavin staring at them, his eyes wide and hard, his mouth pressed into a line.
Five o'clock came. The boys took off, leaving Mairéad to push a trolley around Tesco for the next forty-five minutes and curse them beneath her breath. They were at the shifting bench by ten past the hour. The girls were waiting for them.
"Hey," Linda said, smiling at Conor.
Siobhán, who had been holding Star, thrust her at her sister. "Here, mind her for a minute, will you?" She stood up and stomped down the hill to the green below without waiting for an answer. Jock's face fell.
"Fucksake," he muttered. He followed after his girlfriend, grinding his teeth.
Deflated, Conor ambled over to the bench and sat beside Linda. She slung a consoling arm around him.
"What's the problem there?" he asked, leaning into her shoulder. Star grumbled in commiseration.
Linda shrugged. "It's Siobhán, like. She's been cooking all day. Could be anything."
Conor snuggled up against her. "God, I'm so happy I got the nice one." Linda laughed and kissed him on top of his head.
He hooked her hands underneath Star's armpits and gently levered her onto his lap. "Hi, young wan. How's it going?" The baby stared at her godfather uncomprehendingly, her fist in her mouth.
"Is she still teething?"
"Yeah. Fucking nightmare." Linda turned to the buggy parked beside the bench and dug around in the lower compartment; at length, she produced a rubber ring and gave it to Star to chew. "She stays awake all night crying. That might be why Siobhán's in such pissy form."
"Maybe she wants Star to stay with us for a few days," Conor suggested, jogging the child on his knee. "For a break, like."
"Yeah, maybe." Linda paused for a moment. "Listen, Con, remember that thing we talked about the other day?"
"Yah." Conor kept jogging Star, staring out at the city.
"I really, really want to do the Law Plus degree. I'll be able to get a language and go abroad. It's what I've wanted to do since third year." She squeezed his hand. "Now that the Leaving Cert is over, I think there's a chance I might get it."
"You might not have," Conor replied, turning his head. "What if you failed a subject or something?"
Linda didn't say anything for a moment. She let go of his hand and watched Jock and Siobhán on the green. They were having an animated discussion, but it hadn't descended into a shouting match, which was unusual. Eventually, she murmured, "I'd come home on weekends, and you could come up to visit me whenever you liked."
"Wouldn't be the same, though."
Linda huffed and took Star back. Conor crossed his arms and waited for Jock to make his way back up the hill.
Below, the couple suddenly flew into one another's arms and kissed furiously. Conor grunted and looked at his shoes. Jock bounded back up the slope and plonked down beside him.
"Well, that's sorted," he said, grinning. Then he saw the look on Conor's face. "Here, what's wrong with you?"
"Nothing." Conor stood up. "Let's go."
Jock raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
"Yah, I'm sure!"
"Jesus, alright. Let me say hi to my daughter first." Jock swooped down and lifted Star up high; for the first time that day, she giggled. "Who's my baby? Who's my little baby girl?" He kissed her extravagantly on her nose. "I'll be seein' you soon, alright? Be good for Mammy." He gave Siobhán a peck on the cheek and galloped after Conor, who had already started for home.
"What the fuck is your problem?" he demanded.
"Linda's going away to college in Limerick," Conor growled. "She's abandoning me, man!"
"Oh." Jock's tone softened. "Con, you know she'd never do that. You and Linda are -" He laced his fingers together and locked them tight. "Simpatico, you know? The girl's mad about you."
Conor grunted. "What was wrong with Siobhán, anyway?"
"She said she feels lonely," Jock explained, as they squeezed through a stile and walked along the path behind their estate. "The night the Leaving Cert finished, Linda went out with all their friends and she had to stay home, because Star had that bug and she didn't want to leave her. She hasn't had a night out in months. So, we agreed that I'd take her out to the big club night this Saturday to make up for it."
"So, who's gonna mind the baby?"
Jock slowed his pace. His expression became somewhat inscrutable. "Ah. Well, you see, Con, her parents are going out that night too. Anniversary and all that."
"So get Linda to do it." Conor gave a pebble a vicious kick; it bounced into the undergrowth.
"Sure, Linda's coming out with us." Jock paused. "Which leaves you."
"Me?" Conor stared at Jock in horror. "I don't know anything about looking after a baby! She'll die!"
"She won't die, don't say that! Look, I can mind her no problem and I'm a pure fuckin' eejit." Jock rapped his shorn cranium. "There's literally nothing going on in here and I do fine. You'll be grand, trust me."
Conor opened his mouth to retort, but something caught his eye. A figure watched them at the far end of the path, leaning up against the wall. Conor's stomach clenched.
"Jock," he muttered, "look at that prick up there."
"Who?" Then Jock saw him too. "Ah, fucksake."
"What do we do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do we wait for him to come down to us?"
"Naw, boy, we'll never get anywhere, he's not gonna budge."
"But we'll look like bitches if we go up to him!"
"No, we won't. Anyway, I want to get home. I'm too tired for this shit."
They ambled up the path, looking from side to side. When they pulled up beside Gavin fifteen minutes later, they didn't acknowledge him, but they did stop.
"Boys," Gavin said. His eyes glinted with quiet malice.
"Fuck do you want?" they replied, simultaneously.
Gavin's mouth twitched. "I'm waiting for the others."
"What others?" Conor stepped forward. "You've got no friends, remember?"
Gavin slid off the wall. "Say that again, boy." His eyes were like pale shells in wet sand.
Conor took a step forward. Jock got between them and held them apart - "It's not worth the hassle, Con." They glared at one another. Gavin glanced at them both, spat on the pavement, hopped over the wall, and headed into the estate.
"That's twice today we've seen that prick," Conor said, watching his retreating back. "He's following us."
"I don't think him having a job across from the fishmonger's counts as following us," Jock replied. "But you're right. Something's definitely up."
"Here, d'ya think he wants, I dunno, revenge or something? Over the boxing match that you won?"
Jock nodded. "That could be it. He must've lost a load of money betting on that other gowl." He smiled at the memory. "Well, he's not getting nothing from us, boy."
"The next time we see him," Conor agreed, "I'll deck him."
Jock rolled his eyes. "Right."
"You're not the only one in town who can fight!"
"No, I'm not, but you're, like, the only one in town who can't fight."
Conor swatted him. Jock batted him away easily. Cackling, they continued on into the estate. The brooding sky let down a threatening spatter of droplets, and they picked up speed, cantering the last fifty feet to the house.
"No," Mairéad said. "No, no, no. I'm terribly sorry, Jock, but it's not happening. I have plans for Saturday night."
"And they're more important than my plans? This is bullshit!" Jock stalked off to the room he shared with Conor. A door slammed.
"What do you have goin' on, Mam?"
Mairéad did that thing with her face that meant she didn't especially want to tell him something. "Oh. Y'know. I have an arrangement."
Conor gave her an arch look. "With that prick Sergeant Healy?"
"It's his birthday. Don't call him that. He'll be a member of this family come September."
"Yeah, I know! I'm just getting the last bit of mileage out of it." Conor sat opened the fridge, saw nothing in there that he liked, closed it, and opened it again just to make sure. "See, Jock and Siobhán were really looking forward to their night out. But you're really looking forward to yours, too. Why don't the both of me head out?"
"Because you're too big an eejit to be trusted with a baby by yourself," Mairéad replied, shucking some frozen chicken fillets onto a roasting tray. "Don't fill up on shite, dinner will be ready soon. If you're not doing anything important, you can grate a couple of carrots."
Sighing, Conor grabbed the pack of carrots from the vegetable drawer. "But Mam, it'll only be for a few hours. All I'd have to do is hold her the right way up. Maybe give her some baby food. We can watch TV together or something. You'll get to go out and Jock will get to go out. Everybody will be happy."
Mairéad began chewing her thumbnail. Conor waited.
"If I left you the phone number of the restaurant," she said slowly, "and you wouldn't take her outside or anything...."
"I promise."
"....Alright."
Saturday night found Conor staring at his godchild in her bouncer.
The others had been gone for an hour, but he wasn't bored. Star was the greatest entertainment in the world. She reminded him of those toys he used to see advertised when he was small, the ones that could do basically everything. He tapped her little nose, and she squinted in annoyance. He tickled the sole of her foot, and she snorted and kicked.
"You're amazing," he told her. She blinked and chewed on her fist.
The doorbell rang. Conor got up to answer it. When he saw who was standing on the front step, he closed the door so fast that the house shook.
"Aw, c'mon," Gavin said from outside. "Let us in, will you."
"No fuckin' way!" Conor leant his back against the door, wishing he had the keys handy. "You're not getting any money off me!" A thought struck him. "Or the baby!"
"Money? A baby? The fuck are you on about?"
"I'm just saying, you're not getting back the money you lost at the boxing match, and you're not getting Jock's little girl!"
"I didn't know Jock had a little girl," Gavin replied. "And I'm not cross over that, it's in the past." His tone became rough with some rueful, bitter feeling. "I should've known better than to bet against him. He would always beat me in playfights when we were youngfellas."
A moment passed. Conor opened the door a smidgen.
"If you even look at me funny, I'm calling my mam."
"I won't look at you funny."
"Her boyfriend's a guard."
Gavin snickered.
Conor let him in.
When they came into the sitting room, Star chirruped and waved her arms. Gavin's eyes widened.
"Oh, come here to me." He glanced at Conor. "Can I pick her up?"
Conor shrugged. Gavin knelt down, undid the straps on the bouncer, and gently extracted the baby. He held her so that she was comfortably perched on his arm and said, "You are so like your daddy."
"So." Conor made to lean against the arm of the sofa, but slowly transitioned to sitting on it. "Whaddaya want?"
Gavin chucked Star beneath her slimy chin. "Give us some kitchen towel."
"Kitchen towel's too rough. There's supposed to be baby wipes in the bag beside you."
Gavin fished around in the changing bag Siobhán had left, and pulled out a pack of wipes. Mopping Star's face, he said, "It's not fair for you to have Jock all to yourself."
"What the fuck," Conor replied flatly.
Gavin pinned him with a look of deranged sincerity. "He was my best friend in the whole world for ten years. Now I don't have anyone to hang out with, and you get to go around with him all the time. I want to work out a timeshare agreement."
Conor stared at him. "Give us that baby. You're too much of a fuckin' lunatic to be holding her."
Gavin grimaced, but he passed Star to him nonetheless and sat on the opposite end of the couch. "I'm just sayin', boy, you can't be hogging him all the time. We don't have to be competing with each other. It wouldn't even have to be fifty-fifty."
"Woah, woah, woah." Conor held up his fingers. "One, you can't hog a person. It's not like, I dunno, a toy I have that you want to play with. Two, Jock doesn't even like you anymore, because you stole the lighter that said I was Star's godfather and you trained that prick what made shit of the estate for the boxing match. Three...." He looked up, embarrassed. "Okay, I don't actually have a third reason, but the first two should be good enough." He suddenly remembered. "Oh, wait. You got us expelled. There you go."
Gavin drew his lips from his teeth like a dog. "Jock does like me. Take it back."
Conor snorted. "Boy, believe me, he hates you. You showed your true colours and he saw you for what you really were. And do you know what that was?"
Gavin's face paled. Jerking his chin at Star, he managed to force the words, "Better put her where she won't get hurt."
Star was hastily delivered back into her bouncer, where she began to grizzle in complaint. Conor straightened up, squared his stance, and said, "You know what you are, Gavin? A fuckin' ratboy. It's all you'll ever be to him."
Gavin screamed and sprang up from where he was sitting. He hurled himself at Conor, who grabbed the collar of his hoodie and tried to pull him away. As they grappled, Gavin shrieked a stream-of-consciousness rant directly into Conor's right eardrum: "I know Jock better 'n you - we were friends right from Junior Infants - he'd never say that - you're lying - you dirty little bastard, trying to drive us apart -"
"Shut up, ya headcase!" Conor managed to shove Gavin back onto the couch. He landed with a whuff, winded. "Fucksake, my ear. If I get tinnitus, I'm suing the absolute balls off of you."
Gavin's face crumpled. His shoulders heaved. He curled in on himself and emitted the kind of glass-cracking whine that precedes a really good cry. Bereft in her bouncer, Star began to howl, too. Conor looked from one to the other, wondering whom he should try to calm down first. He picked Star. Jogging her in his arms, he looked down at Gavin and said, "Look, man, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said the very true thing that I said." He paused. "You've gotten way worse at fighting since that time out by the bonfire spot."
"You had the advantage." Gavin gave an almighty sniff and wiped his swollen eyes. "And you have the advantage with Jock, too. How'm I supposed to be friends with him if you're always there?"
Conor sat down a little closer to Gavin than he had previously. "Don't you have anybody of your own? What about that JP fucker?"
Gavin shook his head. "He doesn't want to be friends with me no more. Said I should've told him Jock's secret moves."
"He sounds like a prick."
Gavin shrugged. He held out his arms. Conor hesitated, but then he thought better of it and slid across Star. She reclined on Gavin's lap, plucking at the drawstrings of his hoodie and mumbling crossly.
"A little baby," Gavin croaked. He stroked her downy cheek, and looked up. "I know I treated you like shit that day at school. I wanted things to be the way they always were. Nobody else ever chose me the way Jock did." He managed to crack a grim, bleary smile. "I bet it's the same for you, isn't it? No-one sees you the way he sees you."
"Yeah," Conor admitted, scratching behind his ear.
"I don't want to fight you, Conor," Gavin said. He held out his little finger for Star to grasp. "You've as much a right to Jock as I do. Just give me a chance with him. A friendship like that can't end the way it did. There's got to be a way to make him like me again."
Conor considered this as he watched Star attempt to bite off a chunk of her prize with her budding incisors.
"Give me some time to think about it," he decided.
Gavin nodded. "Meet us next Tuesday after work. And...." He leaned in. "Jock doesn't have to know about this, right?"
Conor leaned back a fraction. "I suppose not. Now, get out of here before my mam comes back and bates the head off ya."
When the others came back that night, they were pleasantly surprised to find Star still alive and with all her limbs still attached. Conor caught her eye as she leant up against her mother's shoulder, chewing on her hair. The baby gave him a baleful look that seemed to say, You little fucker. Just wait 'til I learn to talk.
Conor kissed her on her nose and whispered that she was the soundest eight-month-old in the county.