"Not if you do your bit."

"And if I don't, you get the Guards."

"I have a great friend, a desk sergeant, he'd be down on you like a ton of bricks."

"It's not going to be easy getting that stuff, as you call it, into charity shops."

"You'll manage. You got it out of posh shops."

"If my father gets drunk again I can't be held responsible."

"I've given your next-door neighbor my phone number, told him I was a welfare worker."

"He won't believe you."

"I gave one meaningful look at that pit bull terrier with a muzzle that he has in the house. He believes me."

"And Brian?"

"Tonight in Corrigans at seven o'clock. The snug at the back."

"I'm not sure I'll be up for it."

"I think you will be. It's Corrigans or it's my mate the desk sergeant at the Guards station."

"But if I can't say it?"

"We've been over it twice. Let's do it a third time to make sure you're word-perfect."

They filed into the back booth in Corrigans: James O'Connor, Father Brian Flynn, Johnny, Tim, Ania and Lidia, and Father Tomasz, who had taken the bus up from Rossmore for the occasion.

Brian thought it was just an ordinary meeting. He was surprised that James didn't have a clipboard and paper to take notes. James bought a drink for everyone. He cleared his throat.

"Eileen is joining us. She has something to say," he began.

Brian struggled out of his seat. "James, what are you doing? doing? There's no point in asking her anything. I thought you knew that." There's no point in asking her anything. I thought you knew that."

"No one is going to ask her anything. She wants to say something. Here she is now."

Eileen was less of the Goldilocks now as she looked into six pairs of hostile eyes and the troubled face of Father Brian Flynn.

"Brian, I have to say something and it's not easy. I've had a troubled life and I am inclined to live in a fantasy world to make things better. So I pretend that I have a beautiful apartment instead of living in my parents' falling-down place in Mountainview Road. I pretend I have a lot of upmarket friends, but in fact I have a violent, drunken father who beats my mother. I have no trust fund or allowance or whatever I said. I steal clothes and fashion items. I am barred from most of the stores in Grafton Street and Henry Street, so I have to go out to the suburbs now. I sell some of these things on ..." She paused and looked only at the face of the priest.

"And then, because I didn't have anyone to love me, I made up someone to love me. I pretended that I was in a relationship with you. I see now what a dangerous, stupid, wrong thing it was to do. But I was so lonely. I tried to think of how comforting it would be. I made up all these stories. I watched you as you typed your pa.s.sword and then sent myself e-mails from the Internet cafe. I borrowed your mobile phone from the center and used it to send myself a message. I borrowed your key from Ania's handbag to get access to his flat."

The silence was heavy. Their faces were stricken at the terrible things she had done.

"I'm very, very sorry, Brian. Can you forgive me?"

Brian was wordless. Literally without a word to say. Eventually he stuttered out, "Why now? Now, after all this time?"

Johnny's voice was smooth and soft. "Eileen had a great shock this morning when her mother had a fall. She realizes that some things in life are more important than others. She now has got her priorities right. Is that it, Eileen?"

"Yes, that's it. I see now what matters and what doesn't."

The big, generous face of Brian Flynn was about to welcome her back as a friend, but Johnny had plans for that.

"Since it's obviously too embarra.s.sing for Eileen to be around people who know this part of her life, she is not going to be in the center anymore. She wants to say good-bye to Brian tonight and a.s.sure him in front of all us witnesses that if Brian forgives her and does not take her to court, she will not cross his path again."

"Yes, that's what would be best," Eileen said.

"But of course I forgive you," Brian said. "You are very courageous to have come here of your own accord-"

"She had to come," Johnny interrupted Brian's speech. "She is an ordinary, decent person who couldn't live long with such a deception and she knows that she will keep to this. It's the only thing she can do."

And as Goldilocks walked out of Corrigans, and out of their lives, Ania noticed that she was not wearing smart boots as usual, or her high-heeled, smart leather shoes, and the scarf was not one that would have been worn at the races. Ania also noticed that Tim was paying a lot of attention to Lidia and asking her what kind of music she liked.

Brian was wiping his eyes, where tears of relief and happiness had begun.

"You are a very good druid, Father Brian."

"A good what what?" he asked her.

"Now I have to teach you you English. It's an affectionate word for a priest." English. It's an affectionate word for a priest."

"No, it's not, Ania."

"It is in Ania's world, but maybe you've had such a close call you might be prepared to get out of it and join the real world."

"Ah, Johnny, Johnny, when all is said and done, what do you know about anything?" Brian asked, punching his friend cheerfully in the arm.

Chapter Six.

Mountainview, despite its pleasant name, was one of the tougher areas of Dublin. Some of the big estates were home to drug dealers and it wasn't a place to walk alone at night. The school had its ups and downs, but it was lucky enough to have a headmaster, Tony O'Brien, who could deal with toughness head-on.

Some of the older teachers found the change difficult. Things used to be different. The place had been shabby but they'd had respect. The children came from homes where money was short, but they were all keen to make something of themselves. Today they only cared about money, and if someone's big brother was driving a smart car and wearing an expensive leather jacket, it was hard to get interested in having a job in a bank or an office where you might never make enough to have your own house or car and a leather jacket was just a dream. No wonder so many of them joined gangs. And as for respect?

Aidan Dunne told his wife, Nora, all about it.

Big fellows would push past you in the corridor and sort of nudge the books out of your hand. Then they would laugh and say that sir must be losing his grip. Aidan remembered when they would rush to pick up the books. Not now. Now they called him Baldy, or asked him if he remembered the First World War.

It was the same with the women teachers. If they weren't married, some of the really rough fellows would ask them were they frigid or lesbian. If they were were married, they would ask them how many times a night did they do it. married, they would ask them how many times a night did they do it.

"And what do you say?" Nora wondered.

"I try to ignore them. I tell myself that they're only insecure kids like always-it's just they have a different way of expressing it. Still, it doesn't make the day's work any easier."

"And how do the women cope?"

"The younger ones are on top of it, they say things like, 'Oh, you'd never be able to satisfy me like my old man does,' or else that, sure, they are gay because the only alternative is horrible spotty boys with filthy fingernails." Aidan shook his head. "By the time I get to the cla.s.sroom I'm worn out," he said sadly.

"Why don't you give it up?" Nora said suddenly. She taught Italian at an evening cla.s.s and organized a yearly outing to Italy for the group. She had several other small jobs, but she had no interest in money or pensions or the future. She sat in one of the basket chairs she had bought at a garage sale and tried to persuade Aidan to join her in this carefree lifestyle.

But he was a worrier. It would be idiotic to leave his school now several years before retirement date. It would mean no proper pension; if he were to amount to anything he had to provide for Nora and his family from an earlier marriage.

"Oh, you've well provided for them," Nora said cheerfully. "You've given Nell most of the money you got for the house, Grania is married to the headmaster of Mountainview School, Brigid has been made a partner in the travel agency. They should be providing for you, if you come to think of it."

"But you, Nora, what about you? I want to look after you, give you some comfort and pleasures."

"You give me great comfort and pleasures," she said.

"But some security, security, Nora," he pleaded. Nora," he pleaded.

"I never had security before, I don't want it now."

"I have to finish out my time there."

"Not if you don't like it. What about this lovely life we promised each other and we have mainly had?"

"It depends on my having a good safe job, Nora," he said.

"No-it doesn't. Not if it's making you worry, and panic about these louts. We don't need it, Aidan. Not if it's affecting your health."

"It's not affecting my health," Aidan said firmly.

A week later Aidan and Nora were in one of their favorite secondhand bookshops; they were each browsing separately when she suddenly looked over at him. His hand was at his throat and he seemed to be having difficulty catching his breath.

"Aidan?" she called.

"Sorry, is it very stuffy in here?"

"No, indeed-there's a lazy wind coming in from the ca.n.a.l."

"A lazy wind?" he asked distractedly.

"You know-a wind that doesn't bother to make the time to go round you so it goes through you ..." Nora smiled.

He didn't smile back.

She was alarmed now. "Is there something wrong?"

"I don't seem to be able to breathe in," he said. "Oh, Nora, dear Nora, I hope that I'm not going to faint or anything."

"No, of course you're not. Just sit down there." She was brisk and practical. First, she spoke to the shop owner.

"Where's the nearest hospital?" she asked.

"St. Brigid's. Is there a problem?"

"I think my husband is having some kind of seizure. Taxi rank?"

"Don't bother. I'll drive you," he said.

Nora didn't question it. There would be time to thank him later.

"Right, Aidan, Dara is giving us a lift," she said.

"Where to?" he gasped.

"To somewhere that will help you breathe properly, my darling," she said.

And he closed his eyes in relief.

At the A&E in St. Brigid's the nurses moved him wordlessly into a cubicle. They had given him oxygen and the house doctor had been called.

"Take off his trousers," the doctor said.

"What?" Nora was taken aback.

"Please, madam." The Chinese doctor was very courteous. "His lungs are flooded, we need to drain the liquid from him, we have to put him on a catheter ..."

Nora explained this to Aidan.

"That's extraordinary-I don't feel as if I need to go to the loo at all," he said.

The oxygen was helping. He was much calmer. Nora looked at a huge container and saw it filling up with what looked like gallons of fluid.

"How could that happen?" she asked.

"The heart is failing to pump," the Chinese doctor explained. "He is in heart failure at the moment."

Nora felt all the strength leave her body. The good, kind man that she adored and who loved her too had a heart that had failed him. Life as they knew it was over.

In about an hour Aidan felt so much better he was ready to come home. He was surprised when he heard that they were getting a bed for him in St. Brigid's.

"But I'm perfectly fine now," he protested.

Nora went home for his pajamas, dressing gown and a sponge bag. She remained calm and rea.s.suring on the outside, but inside she felt that she had lost the will to live.

The next few days pa.s.sed in a blur: visits from teams of senior doctors, their younger a.s.sistants with clipboards, nurses, carers, cleaners, trolleys of food. Visitors coming in with anxious faces. And among them was Nora Dunne, tall, wild-eyed, her long red hair with its gray streaks tied back with a black ribbon.