‘What the fuck?’ he cried, surveying me in undisguised disgust.

I could smell and feel warm puke on my chest.

‘It’s wine, just red wine,’ I gasped.

‘Jesus, I thought you’d been stabbed or something. What the fuck was all that about?’

I turned to the flat door: it was closed.

‘Just a nightmare.’

‘Jesus,’ he said again, and headed to the kitchen. I heard water pouring out of the tap. I took the glass of water and tea towel from him and wiped my mouth. I realised how grotesque I must have looked and smiled. It was the sheer relief of being alive.

‘It’s no fucking laughing matter,’ he snapped, ‘you’ve got to see someone about this shit. Oh Christ, the smell, get that shirt off, for fuck’s sake.’

As I unbuttoned I tried to convince myself that it really had been a nightmare. But I felt sure I’d been awake the whole time. Sitting here on the couch, everything around Marion in that streetlight orange glow – the lamp, the posters, the table, my jacket on the back of the chair. It had been real.

Aidan returned to the kitchen door, where he stood in judgement for fully three minutes.

‘You have to see someone, Donal. Not sleeping is one thing, but this …’

‘It was Marion, the girl from tonight.’

‘What?’

‘She appeared to me. I thought she was going to kill me. She seemed so angry. Did you hear the door slamming?’

‘All I heard was you howling at the fucking moon.’

‘I thought it was Meehan.’

‘What?’

‘I thought it was Tony Meehan, coming to finish me off.’

‘You’re raving now, Donal. Jesus. That guy’s long gone.’

‘I’ve been expecting him for three fucking years. Every night.’

‘What are you talking about? Why would he be wanting to finish you off?’

‘It’s why I can’t sleep.’

Aidan couldn’t have looked more bewildered.

‘Something weird happened that night, Aidan. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. I’ve never told anyone. You’ll think I’m insane.’

‘What with some of the people I deal with? I doubt it,’ Aidan laughed, but kindly. ‘Try me.’

Chapter 2

The Irish Midlands

Thursday, August 18, 1988

I last clapped eyes on Tony Meehan three years ago at Tullamore General Hospital in rural Ireland.

He’d put me there.

We, the class of ’88, had completed the Leaving Cert exams. It was late summer and tomorrow I’d be flying to London, with Eve. Before the exams, I’d asked her to change her plans and come to England with me. After a few days, she had agreed. She told me that her dad, Frank, would put down a deposit on a flat for her in Camden, where we could both live. She’d work for his construction company and, hopefully, so would I. She was waiting for the right time to tell her mum, Mad Mo.

I would have jumped on the next flight out after the exams. But for Eve, this felt too sudden; too final.

‘We have the rest of our lives to work and pay bills,’ she reasoned, ‘let’s spend one last carefree summer at home, with our friends.’ One last carefree summer. How that statement haunts me still.

I had conceded to her demands, as usual, but on the condition that we draw a line at the Leaving Cert results.

And now, finally, we were nearly there. There was just one last hurdle before our flight tomorrow. Never one to knowingly shun a pun, Eve had arranged ‘The Eve of Results Fancy Dress Party’, to be hosted at her sprawling family bungalow.

Eve loved fancy dress as much as I loathed it. Whoever said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit hadn’t seen people over the age of ten dressed up as Disney characters, pop stars or zombies.

This party’s theme: heroes. I could hear myself now: ‘Hang on a minute, you’re a woman dressed as a male singer. You’re blowing my mind. Tell me you don’t have a lightning bolt on the other side of your face? Oh you do! Holy shit, you’re David Bowie – and you’re mad and funny and not remotely tragic.’

I appealed to Eve: ‘Don’t you trust us to get drunk and have fun in normal clothes?’

She was having none of it: ‘Would you not just dress up and have a laugh? What’s wrong with you?’

‘I’m just saying it’s a big occasion. We don’t need props.’

Her response stunned me: ‘Jesus, Donal, for once in your life can you stop being so … aloof? You think you’re so above it all, don’t you? Just put in some effort and have some fun and don’t be so fucking up yourself.’

She gave the door a Force 10 slam that caused the lights to flicker.

Charitably, I put it down to insecurity. Fancy dress would force people to have fun, thereby guaranteeing a night to remember. And saying a final farewell to lifelong friends would surely be less upsetting when we were all dressed up like eejits.

The day came and, after thirty seconds of deliberation, I opted for Hunter S. Thompson. For one thing, the Doc is easy: all you need are shades, a pork pie hat and a Hawaiian shirt. Like most men, I’d been storing a Hawaiian shirt in my closet for years, unable to offer a single good reason why until that very moment. Mum dug out the rest, somehow even exhuming a plastic cigarette holder.

Hunter got the nod for another reason. It was thanks to the Doc that I first struck up a conversation with Eve Daly.

Having lusted after her for two years, I’d all but given up hope of ever uttering a single word to Eve Daly. Then, in the school library one day, I heard her faux-Dublin accent say: ‘A bit of cult reading then?’

I turned to see her nodding towards the book, already slippery in my quivering hand.

I’d only read about twenty pages of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas because it scared me and I hated it. But I wasn’t about to tell her that. So I just stood there, reddening, while failing to think of a single thing to say, until I wanted to die of awkwardness.

‘You must be Fintan’s little brother,’ she purred, eyeing me playfully, as a cat might a wounded mouse.

My face was toast now but, somehow, I managed to nod nonchalantly.

‘Yeah, not so little actually.’

For months after, she never missed an opportunity to mock me mercilessly over that line. It became our secret catchphrase. I hoped that my homage to Hunter tonight would propel her back to those giddy early days of illicit cider and snogging; the first sweet breaths of our awakening love. In fact, I was counting on it: things had grown strained between us lately. Waiting didn’t agree with me.

Before I set off, Mum felt compelled to issue those classic Irish maternal warnings.

‘Don’t drink too much now,’ was self-explanatory. ‘No messing,’ she said, which meant no fighting. ‘And no carrying on,’ she added, which meant no shagging.

She cupped my chin: ‘Think once, think twice, then think M-A-M-M-Y.’

I nodded and smiled. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this for the last time.

‘Be good now, and be careful,’ she concluded.

‘Oh I’ll be good, Mammy,’ I quipped, setting off on the bike, ‘it’s up to her to be careful.’

Where the bungalows ceased between Clara and Tullamore, a blood-red sun sank behind the cooling fields, turning sleepy cows into steaming silhouettes. Chirpy birds made their racket on the crooked black power lines, distant African heat urging them onwards. I felt strangely gloomy, unsettled.

Discontented air nibbled at my skin; that damp heavy Midlands air that slides inside your clothes and your bed sheets and chills your bones. I squinted at the winking downtown lights in the distance, trying to picture where Eve’s bungalow sat in the Tullamore ground mist. But the drifting white steam kept deceiving me.

As I dumped the bike behind the tree in her front garden, I assumed she was still waiting for the right opportunity to break the news to her mum. This, surely, could be the only remaining obstacle to our new life together.