‘If I had any notion what you were talking about …’ Trassa’s face was a picture of benign perplexity.
I turned to my left. ‘Chalkie.’
‘Yes, missus!’ He sat up straight and saluted me.
‘Why did you give Trassa your chair? At the start of the session?’
‘Because this one’ – he rocked himself so hard he almost fell over – ‘belongs in Guantánamo Bay.’
‘Would you have given up your chair to Giles?’
‘Um, no. Because I can’t stand the head.’
‘Or Harlie?’
‘Harlie? That one is young and hardy …’ Suddenly his voice trailed off.
‘And Trassa isn’t young and hardy? You gave your seat to Trassa out of respect for her age?’
‘… no. Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘None of you are helping Trassa by shielding her from the truth.’ I was stern. ‘This is what you should have said: “Trassa, doing a Saturday-night scratch card is nothing like borrowing four grand on a credit card you’d dishonestly got in your husband’s name, putting it on a horse and being unable to repay it.”’ I focused on Chalkie. ‘Say something helpful to Trassa.’
‘Ah, here, Rachel …’ He squirmed. ‘Snitches –’
‘– get stitches, Chalkie, no need to tell me. Trassa needs your help. Go on!’
‘Trassa.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I thought that bet was, like, a hundred euro. Four thousand is very different. That’s big money.’
Trassa’s expression sharpened into scorn. ‘You’re a heroin addict, the lowest of the low.’
The group were shocked. Addicts tended to go on the attack when their lies were called out, but this was the first time they’d seen Trassa do it. Suddenly, everyone was staring at their feet, terrified I’d pick them.
‘Giles,’ I prompted.
Oh shit zipped across his face. Nervously he said to Trassa, ‘Why did you take the credit card out in Seamus Senior’s name? Is that not … fraud?’
Mimicking Giles’s accent with impressive spite, Trassa replied, ‘Having a threesome with your first wife and your second wife, while you’re married to your third wife. Is that not … fraud?’
Shame silenced Giles. Eventually he managed, ‘To be accurate, it’s adultery. Morally wrong. What you did, though, that was an actual crime.’
After a brief, stunned silence, Trassa began a stuttering defence. ‘Well! It’s fine and dandy for Mr Cokehead Giles! You’ve plenty of money. But for the likes of me, decent people, who earn their money honestly, we do what we can to get by. What’s mine is my husband’s and what’s my husband’s is mine.’ Witheringly, she said, ‘You and your exhibition openings and sailing around the Greek islands listening to opera, you’ll never understand what it’s like for a woman like me, so keep your posh mouth shut!’
Giles promptly did. Everyone had their mouths zipped. Trassa’s control of the group was extraordinary.
‘Trassa,’ I said. ‘You’re not getting it. What you did is illegal.’
‘But not wrong.’ Trassa was loud.
Harlie, who until now had been twirling her hair and staring into the middle distance, sat up so abruptly that the whole room looked at her. ‘I’m sick of your shit,’ she declared. ‘You lied by acting like you’d only borrowed about fifty euro.’
My heart leapt. For almost a week Harlie had been angry but worryingly aloof; this outburst indicated progress.
‘Lied!’ Trassa exploded. ‘When did I ever lie?’
‘It’s called “lying by omission”，’ Giles supplied, suddenly brave.
Harlie flicked him a scornful glance. ‘Thanks, Giles, I had, like, literally no idea.’ She shifted back to Trassa. ‘You’re a liar.’
‘No, but …’ Trassa ran out of words. She seemed confused.
We were finally getting someplace. Trassa was no longer entirely convinced by her own lies and I needed to park this for a while, to let her truth begin its sacred rearrangement.
9
It was Thursday night before Brigit called me back.
She and I could go for weeks without speaking but our connection was as strong as when we’d shared an apartment in New York, more than twenty years ago.
Around the time I got into recovery she fell for a man from County Galway, with soft-voiced banter and devilment in his eyes. Like everyone, he ‘worked in IT’。 They suffered a tough few early years, crammed into a small apartment in Queens with their two young boys, then returned to Ireland, built their dream house （which was also my dream house） on Colm’s family’s remote, rocky farm, and had two more children.