'I'm just outside BT's,' I wailed.

'Well, stay there. I'll be up to you in a minute.'

'I'll walk down towards you... Oh, Lucy, it was awful...'

'Don't worry, honey. I'll be with you in a minute.'

Lucy must have sprinted all the way because I had barely turned off O'Connell Street when she was beside me. She put her arms round me and even though I was in the middle of Limerick's central business district I blubbered uncontrollably into her shoulder.

'It's OK, sweetie,' she said. 'It's OK. Come on, we'll go home and have a big old drink and you'll be fine in no time.'

Lucy shared a flat with one of her old art-college friends down by the quays. They used to have a fabulous view of the river but then someone went and built a hotel in front of them. What can you do? I like their flat. It still has a partial view of the river (exactly how much river do you need when you have a life?) and everything about it suggests relaxation. It's always clean, but never too tidy. There's always wine in the fridge and something interesting to read on the floor. Their couch is very comfortable and doubles as a bed. And Lucy's always glad to see me. The minute we got in the door she went to the fridge and mixed me a long, cool gin and tonic with very little tonic.

'Oh, Lucy, the Bombay Sapphire you're too good!'

'Oh, well, I save it for the very best occasions and the worst. Now,' she said, sitting me down beside her on the couch, 'tell me exactly what happened.'

I told her, and the bizarre thing was that as I described my predicament that afternoon, the whole thing felt a bit ludicrous.

Of course Lucy's reaction helped: 'Don't mind what that cow says. She's the b.i.t.c.h, she's the one who's sc.u.m, talking to you like that. Her husband isn't her property and her husband did the dirty on you. All you did was love the gobs.h.i.te!'

'But, Lucy, you should have seen the look on her face... and the friend! Oh, my G.o.d, there was poison in that look!'

'She has no right to make you feel that way. Sometimes people end up loving the wrong people. It can't be helped. It wasn't your fault.'

'Well, I suppose I did commit adultery...'

'No, you didn't, he did! And you're supposed to be the lawyer!'

We laughed.

'But really, Luce,' I said, feeling a bit better now, 'you don't have to excuse what I did entirely. I was in the wrong with Daniel.'

Suddenly Lucy got up and swung about the room. 'Relationships are complex,' she said, as if she was searching for the right words. 'It isn't always a simple case of not loving someone because they're married or because they're... Well, it's not simple anyway.'

'You do a pretty good job of keeping it simple,' I reminded her. 'You like a guy, you go out with him, you get tired of him, you dump him. I've never known you to have a relationship crisis.'

'Well... that's because...' She stalled mid-sentence. She was scratching her head and running her tongue repeatedly over her lips. 'That's because I... well, I...' She was swallowing hard.

I was afraid all this talk was beginning to grate on her. 'That's because you're so sweet,' I jumped in, 'and I'm a b.i.t.c.h, like Mrs O'Hanlon says, but you know what? I don't care any more. It happened, it's in the past, and right now I have an engagement party to go to, and I still don't have anything to wear.'

'You're right,' said Lucy, smiling broadly at me, 'and I have a wardrobe full of fabulous things for you to borrow.'

It didn't take us long to fashion an outfit that I would love, my mother would hate, and Keith wouldn't understand. We found an embroidered pair of jeans with strategic rips and put a wildly patterned silk wrap dress on top that would slyly reveal the killer bra I was going to wear underneath. At home I had boots that would set off the jeans and a necklace that would direct attention to the bra. Yet as I stood in front of Lucy's mirror, the jeans hanging off one arm, the top draped across my chest, I couldn't quite hide from the train wreck of the afternoon. I so badly wanted to forget about that whole time and wished it was as easy as putting on a new outfit.

That was one of the great things about being with Keith: he always made me feel good about myself. He was like a great big fur coat that insulated me from my own unpleasant thoughts. I texted him and told him I was looking forward to seeing him at the party. 'I love you...' I wrote, and clicked send. And then I clicked send again and then again and again until I must have sent the message twenty times.

He texted back 'ditto'.

5.

By the time we reached the North Circular Road my mother was in a right state. Everything was done but she was still in a state. Why was I so late? Where had I been? Had I no regard for her feelings? Why wasn't Keith with me? I hadn't done anything stupid, had I? And what on earth was I wearing? I wasn't in the mood to take it so I breezed past her into the kitchen and poured Lucy and myself a gla.s.s of wine. Then we took up positions in the conservatory and let my mother rant on her own. My sisters were arriving, causing a bottleneck in the hall and a distraction for Mum.

We're always a noisy bunch whenever the gang of us gets together. There's Jean at the top, then comes Marion. There's me at the bottom, with Ruth just above me. That leaves Anna and Lucy in the middle. Anna is the only one not still in the environs of Limerick. She lives in New Zealand with her husband, Tommy, and their two kids. We hardly ever see each other; we don't talk much except for Christmas and birthdays. We get along just fine.

Even though Jean has never been my favourite sister, her wedding stands out probably because it was the first and I was so young. She was twenty-one when she met Mike, and I was eleven. They got married three years later when I was fourteen, too old to be a flower-girl and too inconsequential to be a bridesmaid.

Their courtship alleviated some of the tedium of my childhood. At eleven I was already bored with school and most of my friends. Life for a child was different then. Now, the average four-year-old has more engagements in a week than both of its parents. No childhood is complete, it seems, without ballet and drama and chess and violin and harpsichord and G.o.d knows what else. When I was four I played with my dolls. I took their clothes off and put them on again and brought them for walks. Or I played with my friends. We played house, or hospital, or school, or Ma.s.s. We looked around us at the adults and thought, I can do that. It was all very low maintenance. We didn't have mobile phones or Gameboys. We had toy phones and boys who were sometimes game for a bit of girly fun. Television didn't open until five o'clock in the afternoon and then it was only for Bos...o...b..sco or or Wanderly Wagon Wanderly Wagon. I'm not saying it was any better and by the age of eleven I was well fed up with it. The only interesting thing on the horizon was secondary school, which of itself wasn't interesting but would involve crossing town every day, and who knew what exciting things might happen as I waited for my bus in the evenings? So when Mike came a-calling I was charmed by the diversion.

Jean was still living at home when she met him. She had come back to Limerick after trying and failing (rather spectacularly) at college in Galway and had started a secretarial course in Miss Mac's. It was always meant to be a stop-gap for her Jean never saw herself as anybody's secretary. Yet when she got a job in a travel agent's and realized she could spend all her wages on herself, she talked less and less about 'reading' politics and modern history at Trinity.

She met Mike through a girl at work. He had just moved to Limerick and was sharing a flat with this girl's brother. They all met up one evening and that was the start of it. There had been other boys before him a Paul, who took her out to dinner but never offered to pay; a Frank, who took her to a ball but went home with somebody else; a John, who thought she was easier than she actually was. Initially, n.o.body took any notice of Mike, we probably thought he'd go the way of the others, but after a while it was obvious that he was a keeper. My mother says he's the steadying influence Jean needs. I always wondered what she was that he needed. But, then, there's no fathoming other people's relationships. (Or even your own!) What I remember is how nice he was to me. I was the awkward, annoying, totally pain-in-the-a.s.s sister of his girlfriend, but he never forgot to talk to me or buy me Mars bars and bottles of c.o.ke. And it wasn't even as if he was impressing Jean by doing this. In fact, it annoyed the h.e.l.l out of her that he had so much time for me. And, naturally, I thought he was the greatest thing since well, he was the greatest thing ever. A person, an actual man, who cared, or at least gave the impression of caring, about what I thought. We would have long silly conversations about the teachers at my school he even knew one of them. He lent me his records he said there was no decent music in our house. Of course, it was Jean he was lending them to but she had no interest in Blue Oyster Cult or Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin.

Sometimes, Mum would make Jean take me out with them on their dates. Something would have come up and she'd need someone to keep an eye on me. Or she fancied the house to herself for a while. So I would tag along to the cinema and they'd bring me to the pub afterwards, though I was always sworn to say we'd gone for coffee. During those illicit afternoons in Souths or Nancy Blakes, I used to imagine marrying Mike myself in about ten years' time, and as they sipped their beers I'd fill in the details of our life together. But after a while I'd be forced to admit that a lot might change in ten years and that, really, they did seem to like each other a lot. So, given that I probably had more exciting things coming, I surrendered him to my sister.

Lucy's my favourite. One of my aunts once said that Lucy was pretty on the outside and pretty on the inside. It's a daft thing to say, but I've always thought it was true. Lucy has the kind of features that make her seem ageless. She's thirty-four, though she could easily pa.s.s for mid-twenties. Tonight she was particularly lovely in cropped combats with a chiffon and sequin halter-neck top and cute little sequinned fake Birkenstocks. Her dark blonde hair had been cut to make an alluring sweep along her cheekbones, and she had dabbed just the right amount of a shimmery electric blue on her eyes and a light pink gloss on her lips.

Her att.i.tude and outlook are very mid-twenties too. She's still somewhat directionless, even though she has a good job that she likes, as a graphic designer, and has been in it for several years with no sign of moving. But it's the way she treats each day that's characteristic of someone not quite settled. It always seems with Lucy that it's mere accident she ends up going to work every day and coming home to the same flat on Steamboat Quay every evening. She has never yet announced that she's off to South America, but you always feel she might. In a way it's more surprising that she's still here.

She never has a boyfriend for longer than a couple of months and she has certainly never let a man break her heart. All of the boyfriends are great, too good-looking, intelligent, funny and absolutely crazy about her. But she has never fallen for any of them. She says she's yet to find something she hasn't already found somewhere else. Except for the part about broken hearts, I've always felt our att.i.tudes to men are similar; she stays cool, while I rush in like a bad black-and-white heroine, but we end up not having found quite what we're looking for.

There was a man on the scene at the moment, an out-of-work sculptor called Luke, whom Lucy quite liked, but it was obviously going nowhere. He'd been hanging around her flat a lot lately, but I think that was mainly because he'd just been evicted from his own.

Ruth and I avoid each other as much as possible. I'm sure a psychoa.n.a.lyst would say I'm jealous of her because she got all the attention when we were younger and she's still my mother's favourite. But I don't think that's it. I just don't like her. She's needy and small-minded. She has no vision beyond her own life and absolutely no interest in mine. She lives out of my mother's pocket. I don't think she's capable of making the smallest decision without consulting her. Of course, she doesn't think much of me, either. She says I'm a selfish know-it-all who never thinks of anybody but herself. She may be right. She's married to Phil, whom I have no real opinion on, but if he was the only person left in a room for me to talk to, I would leave the room.

If Lucy's my favourite sister, then Marion's my second favourite. She's not as soft as Lucy but I think it's her clear-headedness I admire. She calls a spade a spade, and sometimes no other name will do for a spade. She has always looked a little older than she is or maybe 'settled' is the word, but now, in her late thirties, she has grown into herself and appears very youthful. Her skin has always been fabulous and she's taken very good care of it. Her strong features are arresting, whether she wears makeup or not. She has never obsessed about her appearance: she's either quietly confident about it, or she doesn't give a d.a.m.n. She's not an effusive person but in her quiet way she's happy, and it's always nice to be around happy people.

It was Jean who was arriving now, thankfully diverting Mum. Mike had brought some fancy wine he'd got over the Internet so there was a huge commotion while Dad hauled out his books and established its pedigree. Mum thought it was so thoughtful. Mike is the favourite son-in-law.

Further commotion Ruth playing the martyr with some drama about how she'd tried every single shop in town for the low-salt crackers Mum claims to like but couldn't find them so she'd brought three alternatives instead allowed Mike to drift away from Party Central and into the conservatory to find Lucy and me pouring a gla.s.s of Pouilly Fume for him.

'C'mere, Mike,' hollered Lucy. 'It's safe! There's only ourselves and a very nice bottle of wine.'

'Hey,' he said, pulling up a chair beside us but remaining standing behind it, 'congratulations. Congratulations, Kate! This is great news!'

He stood for a moment longer behind the chair, then walked rather clumsily round it to plant a kiss on my cheek.

'Thanks!' I said, pleased to have his approval. I felt he had witnessed every fiasco of my life and I wanted him to see I could get it right for once. 'I know it's a bit quick, but what the h.e.l.l, I'm not getting any younger. And I want to have a great big wedding while Mum and Dad can still afford it.'

'Oh, it's all on the parents, is it? I thought modern couples paid for their own.'

'G.o.d, no! Why should ye ould ones have had it easy and we young things have to suffer because times have changed a bit? Daddy always said he'd pay for our weddings, isn't that right, Luce?'

'Listen, leave me out of this. If I ever do get married, I certainly won't be having a wedding.'

'Oh, come on, a wedding is great gas. You'll never have a better party.'

'I'm out of here,' said Lucy, unfurling herself from the chair. 'Nice seeing you, Mike. And don't listen to any more garbage from her. The wine's already gone to her head.'

'So,' I said to him, motioning for him to take Lucy's seat beside me, 'what do you think? I'm getting married! Did you ever think you'd see the day?'

'Ahm, it's great.'

'You know,' I said, refilling my gla.s.s he hadn't touched his, 'there was a time when I'd convinced myself I was going to marry you.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah.' I giggled. 'I did. When you were going out with Jean and Mum used to make ye take me on your dates when she'd nowhere else to offload me. Do you remember?'

'I do.'

'And I wasn't even that young, but I do remember thinking that when I got older I'd just marry you. It seemed the sensible thing to do.'

'And... what were you going to do about Jean?'

'Oh, I didn't think that far ahead. I probably presumed you'd have got tired of her by then.'

'Really?'

'Oh, don't look so serious, Mike. I got over you when I fell in love with George Michael. Though it didn't work out with him either...'

Mike didn't seem to find my joke as funny as I did. 'So where's Keith? It's usual to invite the fiance to the engagement party.'

'Oh, he'll be along in a while. I told him things would be starting a little later than originally planned. I'm only thinking of his heart he has no idea how much stress my mother can generate at one of these things.'

'Anyway, Kate,' he said edging a little closer, 'I really hope you'll be very happy. You deserve it.'

'Thanks, Mike, I really appreciate that.'

It was odd, but as he took my hand and gave it a squeeze, I did wonder that he wasn't a little happier.

Just then, as if on cue, Keith materialized in front of us. He just stood there for a second as if he didn't quite know what to do. Mike got up immediately, pushing his chair back with undue force, and put out his hand. 'Congratulations, Keith,' he said quickly, almost automatically. 'Well done. I hope ye'll be very happy.'

'Thanks, Mike,' he said giving Mike's hand a perfunctory shake. 'I'm sure we will be.'

Suddenly Jean crashed through the door with a tray of canapes, howling about how I never lost it and it was so typical of me to be sitting on my a.s.s while everybody else did the work. Didn't I know that everybody was in the sitting room waiting for us? Didn't I realize this party was for me? To shut her up I grabbed Keith and descended upon the crowd waiting anxiously in the sitting room where there followed an obscene amount of hugging and kissing and wailing, all of it conducted about two octaves above what was healthy for the human ear to deal with.

Keith rose manfully to the occasion, saying the right things, hugging heartily, kissing tenderly, even blushing slightly. I got dragged into the centre of it while everybody admired the fabulous vintage ring and congratulated Keith on his great taste in jewellery as well as women, and for a moment I revelled in the attention, even though I was still unsettled by the events of the afternoon. Thankfully, my father interrupted the orgy of well-wishing he had urgent need of Keith in the cellar so I went off to find Lucy again.

However, it wasn't long before every room in the house had filled with my extended family, and Lucy and I had no option but to join the throng. Lucy was accosted by some long-lost neighbour in the hallway and I situated myself centre stage in the sitting room. It was packed with people I didn't care about, but that couldn't take from the feeling of warmth I always get in that room. It hasn't changed much since we were kids, but unlike most seventies living rooms it was never done out in shades of orange and brown polyester. My mother's taste in clothes translates well to a high-ceilinged turn-of-the-century drawing room. The walls are white where they aren't bearing some interesting, if largely unnoteworthy, artwork. These pieces are Dad's choice. The furniture is a mixture of mahogany, maple and oak, all of it antique. The periods are mixed but the theme is not: each piece the sofa, the leather armchairs, the chaise longue chaise longue, the maple sideboard, the bookcase, the end tables is functional and beautiful.

I spied one of my aunts sitting gingerly on the edge of Dad's favourite chair and was turning away when she caught my eye. 'Kate, petal, sweetheart, congratulations! We've been dying to see you. Your father's run away with your lovely man. We hardly got a chance to say h.e.l.lo but he looked very nice, very handsome. Are you delighted, my dear?'

This was Mary, the aunt who apparently hadn't believed in Keith's existence. It would have been too wonderful if I could have kept her away from Keith all night.

'h.e.l.lo, Auntie, yes, we're delighted.'

'And your mother tells me there's no date set and nothing booked. You can't hang around, these days everything's booked years in advance. I was only telling your mother how your cousin Gina couldn't get a Sat.u.r.day in the Castletory Park for three years! Of course, the Castletory Park is a premier hotel you might get something if you went further afield. So, when are ye thinking of?'

'We don't really know, to be honest. There's been so much going on we haven't had time to think about it. Sure you know yourself.'

'Absolutely!'

Then it was the turn of another aunt to swing round and berate me for being so sly and keeping everything so tight. But at least Auntie Brenda was making herself useful by carrying round a tray of drinks, so I helped myself and wandered into the dining room. There were as many people there, but it didn't seem as crowded as everybody was forced to give way to the large mahogany table in the centre of the room. It radiated a profound sense of calm. Jean was sitting by herself at one of the large sash windows.

'Hi, Jeanie! You enjoying yourself?'

'Oh, hi, hon! Listen, sorry for screaming at you earlier. I really am delighted for you, if a little surprised. It's a bit rushed, isn't it?' Jean knew who my last boyfriend had been.

'Oh, not really. It just seemed right, you know? I suppose it is a bit rushed but we're not getting any younger here.'

Jean smiled and gave me a squeeze. She's not a bad old sort sometimes.

'And how are you?'

'Oh, fine. Busy. Nothing new.'

She paused and seemed to be about to say something else, but changed her mind. She looked quite pretty tonight. She had allowed her hair to grow longer, which suited her. Also, she had stopped dyeing it herself and invested in a good colourist. She was even wearing makeup, which she seldom did. I decided to tell her. 'You look really nice tonight.'

'Hey, thank you. I did did make a bit of an effort, given the occasion.' She smiled again, reminding me of a photo Mum has in the sitting room. She had just made her confirmation and believed herself to be filled with the Holy Spirit. make a bit of an effort, given the occasion.' She smiled again, reminding me of a photo Mum has in the sitting room. She had just made her confirmation and believed herself to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

We were interrupted by yet another aunt; this time it was Auntie Joan, trying to get the five sisters out in the hall for a photograph. 'Come on, come on,' she was going on, 'we're nearly there now. It's all down to you, Lucy.' I tried telling her that we were missing Anna and suggesting that we'd better wait until all six of us were together, but nothing would put her off. She already had Ruth posing at the foot of the stairs; Marion was leaning against the jamb of the sitting-room door, refusing to move; Jean and I remained highly sceptical behind Auntie Joan, and Lucy was nowhere to be found. My mother was flapping around, not sure whether she objected more to the fact that her sister was taking over or to the fact that n.o.body would co-operate with her. I suggested going off to find Lucy but Auntie Joan was letting n.o.body go. 'She'll make her way back to the drinks soon enough,' somebody said.

Meanwhile Dad returned with a camcorder. He'd borrowed it from one of the neighbours and thought it would solve the problem of elusive and uncooperative daughters. We posed reluctantly and he captured us all, then handed the camera to Auntie Joan and told her to go and find Lucy. He said he had an idea she was out in the back garden somewhere. 'Your mother would love a little word,' he said to me.

'What?'

'About the party and how well it's going. How much you appreciate her and all that.'

'Oh, yes, Dad, sorry.'

'She's talking to your auntie Margaret in the dining room.' I eventually found my mother sitting alone at the kitchen table, sipping a gla.s.s of Harvey's Bristol Cream.

'h.e.l.lo, love,' she said. 'Don't tell your father I'm drinking this. He thinks it's awful rubbish.'

I knew it was her favourite. Her parents used to drink it by the bucketful when they could afford it.

'Of course I won't. You OK, Mum?'

'Oh, I'm a little tired. It's a lot of work, after all.'

'I know, and I really appreciate it. It's been a great party. Everybody's having a brilliant time.'