Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

‘What do you do, Ryan? Are you in college?’

He shook his head.

‘Well, what then?’

‘A bit of this and that,’ he said.

‘A bit of this and that? Shady little fecker, aren’t you?’

He put his head back onto his free arm.

‘Pup,’ she said.

He looked at her, his nose and mouth hidden in the crook of his arm.

‘Easy know what you are,’ she said.

‘That easy?’

‘Oh yes. And yet don’t you have complicated eyes? Very dark. But then, your mother wasn’t Irish.’

He closed his eyes and for a moment she wondered if he hadn’t done so in self-preservation, but then he opened them again, and she watched them focus until he was ready to say, ‘How’d you know that?’

‘I know things,’ she said, confidently; more than the priests, more than the idiot savants down at Ruby Dea’s ramshackle commune. ‘You’re the musician,’ she stated. ‘But you’re not playing, are you?’

He sat straight and stared at her and his hand in hers turned heavy.

‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘How’d you know that?’

‘Coz I can see right through you,’ she said. ‘Coz you’re as blatant as a burning church. Don’t you think I know what’s wrong with you? It’s easy see what you’re able for, and not able for, and despite what he tells me I know you’re not able to play the little gangster.’

‘What the fuck did you call me?’

‘A little gangster. Isn’t that all you are? Don’t you think how you make your money has plenty to do with wanting to drown yourself?’

She’d hit the spot. He made to pull away, but she held on tight and he had neither the foundation nor the spite to drag her with him. He stopped pulling and she said, ‘That river doesn’t care who or what you are, but it will take you, boy, if you dare it to. Don’t you know that?’

He wasn’t able to answer.

‘I should know. This city ruined me,’ she confided. ‘But the odd thing is, while it was ruining me I was ruining it, and I only figured that out when it was too late to stop it. What I did to this city, me and Dominic Looney, is something immeasurable and I see it in the faces of people I never should have met. And yet… maybe I can make it up to one man, at least. The city doesn’t see me, but maybe I’m aiming too high.’

She rubbed her thumb over his skin again, taking him in, his father’s face, his father’s eyes, and a future all of his own to burn.

‘Don’t let the river take you,’ she said. ‘Promise me!’

She put her arms around him and his pulse leapt as she pressed the palms of her hands against his neck.

‘Promise me, I said!’

She let him sit up and took his face in her hands.

‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I’m a bad guy. Worse than you could fucking imagine.’ His voice was choked with woozy torment; she rubbed her thumbs over his cheekbones, delirious. ‘I’ve already done the damage. I had something good and I wrecked it, and ruined it and lost it. What am I without her? I’m turning into Him.’

‘Not if I can help it.’

She tilted her head towards the city and smiled.

‘Of course this place can pull you apart,’ she said. ‘But this country’s done punishing me, and I can do what I like now, and so I choose to fix you, and by God this pile will let me. Don’t mind that river, Ryan Cusack. Whatever’s bad we’ll burn it out; that’s how it’s done. If you want to take the fuckers with you, that can be arranged.’

Beyond them turned the world and the land and its sleeping city. Maureen felt giddy. Robbie O’Donovan had been a mistake Cork hadn’t even noticed, but this one, this one she’d substitute, a life for a life, and she’d make damn sure the city knew it.

‘I will put you right,’ she said. ‘Sure haven’t I already saved your life?’

Heartfelt thanks are owed to Mark Richards for the advice and the tweaks and his patience with terrible jokes. And to Caro Westmore, Becky Walsh, Rosie Gailer and everyone at John Murray.

To the lion Ivan Mulcahy, to Sallyanne Sweeney and Stephanie Cohen for all of their help, and to the tirelessly wonderful Sinéad Gleeson.

To the brave souls who read and steered and bolstered me without ever realising how much it meant: John Green, Richard Fish, Arlene Hunt, Liam Daly, Damien Mulley, Julian Gough, Conor O’Neill, Haydn Shaughnessy and Sinéad Keogh.

To Kevin Barry, for shoving me where I needed to be, and to Sami Zahringer, for her immense generosity.

To my sprawling, intimidating, brilliant family, and to the friends who continue to put up with me, particularly to Ellen Brohan, Louise Lynskey, Kevin Lehane and his exceptional brain, and my partner-in-crime Caroline Naughton.

And most especially to Róisín, who has a writer instead of a mother and doesn’t seem to mind, and to John, because there’d be nothing without John.