“I get paid. Next summer I’m going to Australia, I’m going to snorkel around the Great Barrier Reef and eat Skippyburgers and get pissed at barbecues on Bondi Beach with gorgeous Aussie babes, because of that job. What’s not to love?”

Shay laughed, a short scrape. “Better save your money.”

Kevin shrugged. “Plenty more where that came from.”

“There is in me arse. That’s what they want you to believe.”

“Who? What are you on about?”

“Times are changing, pal. Why do you think PJ Lavery-”

“Fucking bogger,” said all of us in unison, except Carmel, who now that she was a mammy said, “Fecking bogger.”

“Why do you think he’s gutting those houses?”

“Who cares?” Kev was getting irritated.

“You should bloody well care. He’s a cute hoor, Lavery; he knows what way the wind’s blowing. He buys those three houses last year for top whack, sends out all those pretty brochures about quaint luxury apartments, and now all of a sudden he’s dropping the whole idea and stripping them for parts?”

“So what? Maybe he’s getting a divorce or having tax hassle or something. How is that my problem?”

Shay stared Kevin out of it for another moment, leaning forward, elbows on the table. Then he laughed again and shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you?” he said, reaching for his pint. “You don’t have a fucking clue. You swallow every bit of shite you’re fed; you think it’ll be all sunshine and roses forever. I can’t wait to see your face.”

Jackie said, “You’re pissed.”

Kevin and Shay never did like each other very much, but there were whole layers here that I was missing. It was like listening to the radio through stiff static: I could pick up just enough to catch the tone, not enough to know what was going on. I couldn’t tell whether the interference came from twenty-two years or eight pints. I kept my mouth shut and my eyes open.

Shay brought his glass down with a flat crack. “I’ll tell you why Lavery’s not wasting his cash on fancy apartments. By the time he’d have them built, no one will have the money to buy them off him. This country’s about to go down the tubes. It’s at the top of the cliff, and it’s about to go over at a hundred an hour.”

“So no apartments,” Kev said, shrugging. “Big deal. They’d only have given Ma more yuppies to bitch about.”

“Yuppies are your bread and butter, pal. When they become extinct, so do you. Who’s going to buy big-dick tellys once they’re all on the dole? How well does a rent boy live if the johns go broke?”

Jackie smacked Shay’s arm. “Ah, here, you. That’s disgusting, that is.” Carmel put up a hand to screen her face and mouthed Drunk at me, extravagantly and apologetically, but she had had three Babychams herself and she used the wrong hand. Shay ignored both of them.

“This country’s built on nothing but bullshit and good PR. One kick and it’ll fall apart, and the kick’s coming.”

“I don’t know what you’re so pleased about,” Kevin said sulkily. He was a little the worse for wear, too, but instead of making him aggressive it had turned him inwards; he was slouched over the table, staring moodily into his glass. “If there’s a crash, you’re going down with all the rest of us.”

Shay shook his head, grinning. “Ah, no, no, no. Sorry, man; no such luck. I’ve got a plan.”

“You always do. And how far have any of them ever got you?”

Jackie sighed noisily. “Lovely weather we’re having,” she said to me.

Shay told Kevin, “This time’s different.”

“Sure it is.”

“You watch, pal. Just you watch.”

“That sounds lovely,” Carmel said firmly, like a hostess hauling her dinner party back under control. She had pulled her stool up to the table and was sitting very straight, a ladylike pinky lifted off her glass. “Would you not tell us about it?”

After a moment Shay’s eyes moved to her, and he leaned back in his seat and started to laugh. “Ah, Melly,” he said. “You always were the only one could put manners on me. Do yous lot know, when I was a great lump of a teenager, our Carmel slapped me round the back of the legs till I ran, because I called Tracy Long a slut?”

“You deserved it,” Carmel said primly. “That’s no way to talk about a girl.”

“I did. The rest of this shower don’t appreciate you, Melly, but I do. Stick with me, girl. We’ll go places.”

“Where?” said Kevin. “The dole office?”

Shay shifted his focus back to Kevin, with an effort. “Here’s what they don’t tell you,” he said. “In boom times, all the big chances go to the big fish. The workingman can make a living, but it’s only the rich who can get richer.”

Jackie asked, “Could the workingman not enjoy his pint and have a nice chat with his brothers and sisters, no?”

“When things start going bust, that’s when anyone with a brain and a plan can pick up a big old handful of the pieces. And I’ve got those.”

Hot date tonight, Shay used to say, crouching to slick back his hair in the mirror, but he’d never let on with who; or Made a few extra shekels, Melly, get yourself and Jackie an ice cream, but you never knew where the money had come from. I said, “So you keep telling us. Are you going to put out, or are you just going to keep cock-teasing all night long?”

Shay stared at me; I gave him a big innocent smile. “Francis,” he said. “Our man on the inside. Our man in the system. Why would you care what a renegade like me does with himself?”

“Brotherly love.”

“More like you think it’ll be crap, and you want that nice warm feeling that you’ve beaten me again. Try this on for size. I’m buying the bike shop.”

Just saying it brought a faint red flush onto his cheekbones. Kevin snorted; Jackie’s high-up eyebrows shot up even farther. “Fair play to you,” she said. “Our Shay, the entrepreneur, wha’?”

“Nice one,” I said. “When you’re the Donald Trump of the bike world, I’ll come to you for my BMXs.”

“Conaghy’s retiring next year, and his son wants nothing to do with the business; he sells flash cars, bikes aren’t good enough for him. So Conaghy gave me first refusal.”

Kevin had surfaced from his sulk enough to look up from his pint. He asked, “Where’re you going to get the dosh?”

The hot glitter in Shay’s eyes made me see what girls saw in him. “I’ve got half of it already. I’ve been saving for this for a long time. The bank’s giving me the rest. They’re tightening up on the loans-they know there’s trouble ahead, same as Lavery does-but I got in there just in time. This time next year, lads, I’ll be a man of independent means.”

Carmel said, “Well done,” but there was something in her voice that caught my ear; something like reserve. “Ah, that’s great altogether. Well done.”

Shay took a swig of his pint and tried to play it cool, but there was a grin pressing at the corners of his mouth. “Like I told Kev, there’s no point spending your life working to fill someone else’s pockets. The only way to get anywhere is to be your own boss man. I’m just putting my money where my mouth is.”

“So?” Kevin asked. “If you’re actually right and the country’s going down the tubes or whatever, you’re still going with it.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, mate. When this week’s rich pricks find out they’re in the shit, that’s when I get my chance. Back in the eighties, when no one we knew had the money for a car, how did we get around? On bikes. As soon as the bubble bursts, Daddy’s not going to be able to buy his little darlings BMWs to drive the half mile to school any more. That’s when they show up at my door. I can’t wait to see the faces on the little cunts.”

“Whatever,” Kevin said. “That’s lovely, that is. Really.” He went back to staring into his pint.

Carmel said, “Will it not mean living above the shop?”

Shay’s eyes went to her, and something complicated passed between them. “It will. Yeah.”

“And working full-time. Your hours won’t be flexible any more.”