"Yourself?" he said, looking at Laura. He hadn't even asked Adam to contribute. He obviously recognized a penniless student when he saw one.

"Oh, I make my contributions directly," Laura explained to the man.

"Do you?" I asked, puzzled. I hadn't known that Laura was involved in any children's charities.

"Well, I have sex with a child on a regular basis," she declared. "If that isn't contributing directly, I don't know what is."

The man looked horrified and moved on to the next table at high speed.

Adam roared with laughter.

"I've never met a pedophile before," he said to her.

"I'm only joking. I'm not really a child molester at all," she told Adam.

"The child in question is nineteen."

We finished our drinks and put on our coats and got ready to leave.

The pub was starting to empty. Everyone at the tables around us seemed in high spirits, except the bartenders, who were practically begging people to leave. "I've worked thirteen nights in a row," I heard one bartender telling a particularly rowdy table of revelers. "I'm exhausted." In fairness, he did look exhausted, but I think he was wasting his time trying to appeal to their humanitarian side.

"You're bringing tears to my eyes," said a rather drunk young man with grave irony.

"Finish that beer, or I'm taking it," threatened another bartender, at another nearby table.

So the customer drank nearly a whole pint in one gulp, to the encouraging comments of his friends-"Good man," "Waste not, want not," and various other shouts.

Even Laura called over, "Swalley that down."

We passed the customer about five minutes later, just outside the pub, as he was being assisted by a couple of his equally drunk friends while vomiting copiously.156.

When we got to the door of the pub, we found that the rain had started again.

"I'm only parked up the road," said Laura. "I'll run."

We hugged each other.

"I'll be out on Sunday to see Kate," she said. "Lovely meeting you, Adam." And off she ran into the wet night, almost colliding with the vomiting man.

"Sorry," she called to him, her voice floating back to us on the damp night air.

Adam and I stood at the door for a moment or two. I wasn't sure what to say to him, and he said nothing at all.

"Can I give you a lift home?" I asked.

I felt a bit awkward about asking him.

As though I was the rich older woman who was desperate for love and sex and buying the penniless handsome young man.

"That would be really great," he said. "I think I've missed the last bus."

He flushed a smile at me.

I relaxed.

I was doing him a favor. Not trying to take advantage of him.

We walked briskly along the wet streets until we reached the parking lot, and believe me, there was nothing even remotely romantic about the walk in the rain. Utter misery is what it was. My boots are suede. I'll have to spend the rest of my life standing with them over a steaming kettle to restore them to their former glory.

We got into the car. He threw his soaking bag on the back seat. He sat in the passenger seat and, I swear to God, he practically filled the whole front of the car.

Off we went.

He started fiddling with the radio station.

"Oh don't!" I told him. "Dad'll kill me."

I told him the conversation that I'd had with Dad before I left and he laughed heartily.

"You're a good driver," he said after a while.

Naturally, as soon as he said that I got all flustered and stalled the car, and then nearly drove into a pole. He gave me 157 directions to his apartment in Rathmines and we drove along in the rain.

Neither of us spoke.

The only sound was the swishing of the car wheels on the road and the squeaking of the windshield wipers.

But it was a nice silence.

I pulled up outside his house and smiled good-bye at him. It really had been a lovely evening.

"Thanks for the lift," he said.

"You're welcome." I smiled.

"Er, em...would you like, I mean...can I offer you a cup of tea?" he asked awkwardly.

"When...like...now, do you mean?" I asked just as awkwardly.

"No, I was thinking of sometime around next December." He smiled at me.

My refusal was automatic-it was in my mouth before I even knew it. I had several excuses: It was late, I was soaked, this was my first night to leave Kate with someone else, Helen would machete me.

"Yes," I said, totally surprising myself. "Why not?"

I parked the car and in we went.

I was filled with trepidation. My fear was well-founded. I had been to enough students' apartments to expect the worst. All kinds of odd arrangements. You know, six or seven people sleeping in the front room, a couple of people living in the kitchen, having to go through a bedroom to get to the bathroom, having to go through the bathroom to get to the living room.

Bedrooms divided by a tartan rug hanging from the ceiling, to give a pretense of privacy. Wardrobes in the hall. Chests of drawers in the kitchen.

Saucepans and buckets in the bathroom. The fridge on the landing. The coffee table in the front room consisting of four blue milk crates and a slab of chipboard.

You know, that kind of thing.

A kitchen that looked like if it were struck by a bolt of lightning, the process of evolution would begin all over again, curtains askew and crooked, broken blinds hanging from the158.

windows, crushed cans of beer underfoot, the cistern being used to make home brew.

Oh yes, believe me, I've paid my dues at the student apartments of this world.

So I was greatly relieved when Adam opened the front door and let me into an apartment that looked normal-in fact, I'd go so far as to say downright pleasant.

"Come into the kitchen," he said, taking off his wet jacket.

We went into the kitchen and Adam put on the kettle and a heater. I was suspicious.

"The other people who live here," I asked him, "are they students also?"

"No," he said, taking my coat off me and hanging it up near the heater.

"They both work." Well, that explained a lot.

"Are you soaked?" he asked nicely. "Would you like me to get you a sweater?"

"No, I'm fine," I said gamely. "My coat protected me from the worst of the precipitation."

He smiled.

"Well, I'll get you a towel to dry your hair," he said, and left for a moment.

He was back almost immediately with a big blue towel in his hand, and I'm glad to be able to put your mind at rest here and tell you that, no, he didn't dry my hair for me.

No, he gave me the towel and I gave my hair a few halfhearted scrubs.

I didn't want to end up with it sticking up all over the place and drying at funny angles.

Quite frankly, I'd rather have caught pneumonia.

I took off my boots and put them in front of the heater. Adam gave me a cup of tea and we sat at the table in the pleasant warm kitchen. He even found a packet of biscuits.

"They're Jenny's," he explained. "I'll tell her in the morning that I had a special visitor last night. She'll understand."

He made it seem so easy to be charming. It never came across as smarmy or insincere.

"So how long is it since you've had Kate?" he asked, putting the sugar in front of me.

"Over a month now," I said.

"Look, I hope you don't mind," he said awkwardly. "But Helen has told me the situation with you and your husband."159.

"And?" I said, minding.

"Well, nothing really," he said hurriedly. "I mean, I know it's none of my business or anything, but I'm sure it's not easy for you. I went through something a bit similar myself and I know how awful it is."

"Really?" I said, intrigued.

"Well, yes," he said. "But I'm not trying to pry into your life or anything."

Never mind that, I was thinking, tell me! You can pry into my life if I can pry into yours.

"And," he continued, "I know you've got lots of friends in Dublin, but if you ever want to talk to me you can."

"You're not using me as some kind of experiment for your psychology course?" I asked suspiciously.

"Not at all." He laughed. "It's just that I liked you from the moment I met you. And I like you more after tonight. And I'd like it if we were friends."

"Why?" I asked, even more suspiciously.

Well, I was perfectly entitled to ask, wasn't I? I mean, I just didn't get it.

I was just perfectly ordinary. Why had Adam decided that I was special and worth being friends with?

I wasn't putting myself down here. I had lots of good qualities, I knew that. I wasn't just being Queen of the Low Self-Esteem. But lots of people have good qualities. There wasn't anything particularly unusual unusual about me. about me.

Now Adam, on the other hand, must have met millions of women, funny, beautiful, clever, entertaining, rich, waiflike, cute, sexy, interesting women.

Why had he singled me out?

"Because you're nice," he said.

Nice! I ask you.

Who wants to be picked by a beautiful man like Adam just because she's nice?

"And you're very funny. And clever. And interesting," he said.

That's more like it, I thought.

Any chance of sexy or beautiful?

I'd even have settled for attractive.

But nothing doing.

Sexy, beautiful and attractive were not on offer.160.

But what the hell. It was nice talking to him. I was enjoying myself.