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Kathleen promised. She turned back to say, "Does the cat need another of those pills?"
    "Oh yeah, bless you."
    Through the pub's huge windows Síle watched her heading for the taxi rank, her blond head and sleek camel coat disappearing in the crowd; though fit, Kathleen saw no point in walking ten minutes through dark and dirty streets. Síle felt a little clenching of guilt for not going home with her. But then, Kathleen could have stayed long enough for one drink with their friends— your friends, she'd probably say.
    Her gizmo showed a text from Orla inviting her to John and Paul's school production of The King and I, and yes, thank god Síle was off that day, not like the last three auntly occasions: Keep me a seat, she shot back. Her thumb twinged—too much texting—but she ignored it. A name she didn't recognize turned out to be a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend at a conference on cultural hybridities in Warsaw, wanting advice on restaurants: Síle checked her file and sent back a quick recommendation.
    What a wordy species humans were, it struck her. Not content with singing and lecturing and gossiping and phoning strangers to offer them the opportunity to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime special offer, they also wrote. What a Babel! They scribbled anniversary cards and memos, epics and obituaries, lyrics and encyclopedia entries, books of affirmations and smut, and all for what? To reach each other, to convince, beg, placate, reassure. To stay in the loop.
    That time Síle's last PDA had crashed and she'd lost her whole address book ... it made her neck go rigid to remember. She'd felt like a diver whose air hose had got tangled.
    She saved the text from Marcus till last, as her former colleague was her favourite man in the world (well, after her father). "Will try make it for quick one, have major news!" Síle stared at the words. Had he landed a great job? But Marcus liked his freelance technical drawing. His landlady was putting him under pressure to move out of his Dun Laoghaire flat, she knew, so maybe he'd managed to find something halfway affordable, if such a thing still existed in Dublin.
    Still no sign of Jael and Anton. She called up the electronic digest of the Irish Times, and paused at a dispatch from the paper's woman in Baghdad. What peculiar lives foreign correspondents lived: dodging shrapnel, scribbling notes in the supermarket. They were never meant to quite settle in, Síle supposed; the moment they felt at home in the new country, they might forget how to explain things to their faraway readers.
    Which somehow reminded her of Jude Turner, as a surprising number of things did. It had occurred to Síle, on and off over the month of January, to track down that little museum online and lash off a greeting, maybe in the flippant form of a cod genealogical query or something. But no, best to leave it as a self-contained brief encounter at an airport, one of the serendipitous side effects of travel.
    It did bother Síle slightly that during that breakfast at Heathrow she hadn't come out with the usual phrase, "my partner Kathleen." But really, she wasn't obliged to discuss her domestic or undomestic situation with everyone she met. She'd never see the girl again, so what did it matter?
    Long-limbed, Jael strode out of the crowd. "Muchos apologos," she cried, landing a kiss on Síle's cheek, "babysitter fell off his bike doing wheelies to impress Iseult. So what's the craic, what's the story?"
    "Hello at last," said Síle. Jael's dark red curls were cut shorter than usual around her freckled face, and long rods of silver hung from her earlobes. When she took out her lighter, Síle clicked her fingers.
    Jael slapped it down with a groan. "I keep forgetting the bloody ban. We're living in a police state."
    "Have you thought of just giving it up?"
    "I wouldn't dream of letting the State bully me into anything," said Jael virtuously. "No, it did cross my mind when I turned forty, but it seemed too