‘You’ll lose your job if you keep doing that.’

God knows why she was cross with me. Many was the time, in the past, that Brigit had begged me to ring in dead for her.

Anyway, it was too hot to fight.

‘Shut up,’ I said awkwardly. ‘And tell me how you got on last night with Our Man in Havana.’

‘Madre de Dios!’ she declared, all that she remembered from the Spanish lessons she had gone to in an attempt to win the heart of the unfair Carlos. ‘High drama or what! Turn off that telly and turn on the fan, till I tell you.’

‘The fan is on.’

‘God, and it’s only June.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, wait till you hear.’

Her face darkened with anger as she related how she’d legged it to Z Bar and Carlos had left. So she went to his apartment, but Miguel was guarding the door and wouldn’t let her in. But she got as far as the hall and saw a little Hispanic babe, about three foot high, with snapping brown eyes and a don’t-fuck-with-me-or-my-brothers-will-flick-knife-you air.

‘And the minute I saw her, I just knew, d’you know what I mean, Rachel, I just knew that she was something to do with Carlos.’

‘Women’s intuition,’ I murmured. Although maybe I should have said ‘Women’s neurosis’.

‘And was she?’ I asked. ‘Something to Carlos?’

‘His new girlfriend, according to her, and she made me come in and she kept screeching in Spanish at Carlos, then she said to me, “Steeck to joor own kind”.’

‘Steeck to joor own kind?’ I was shocked. ‘Like in West Side Story?’

‘Exactly,’ said Brigit, her face a study of fury. ‘And I don’t want to steeck to my own kind, Irish men are the pits. And wait till you hear the worst bit, she called me a gringa. Those exact words, “Joo are a gringa.” And Carlos let her, he just sat there like he couldn’t speak for himself anymore!

‘BASTARD,’ she shouted, throwing my can of deodorant across the room, where it bounced off the far wall. ‘The dirty, lousy little bollocks. I ask you, a gringa, what an insult.’

‘But, wait a minute,’ I said, anxiously.’ Gringa isn’t really an insult.’

‘Oh, right,’ Brigit said hotly. ‘So being called a prostitute isn’t really an insult. Thanks very much, Rach…’

‘Gringa doesn’t mean prostitute,’ I said loudly. You had to talk loudly to get through to Brigit when she was in this kind of mood. ‘It just means white person.’

There was a stunned silence.

‘So what is Cuban for prostitute?’

‘I don’t know, you’re the one who did the Spanish lessons.’

‘You know,’ Brigit looked a bit mortified, ‘I thought she seemed a bit confused when I said that I was no gringa and the only gringa round there was her.’

‘So is that the end of Carlos?’ I asked. Until the next time in any case. ‘Are you devvo?’

‘Devvo,’ she confirmed. ‘We’ll have to get jarred tonight.’

‘Right you are. Or maybe I could ring Wayne and…’

‘NO,’ she shouted. ‘I’m sick of you…’

‘What?’ I stared in fear at her.

‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘Nothing. I just want to get pissed and maudlin and cry. You can’t feel miserable with coke.

‘Not if it’s you that’s taking it, anyway,’ she added cryptically. ‘I’m going to get changed.’

‘Prostituta,’ Brigit called from her room.

‘You’re not exactly a saint yourself,’ I spluttered.

‘No,’ I could hear the laugh in her voice. ‘I’ve looked it up, that’s the Spanish for prostitute.’

‘Ah, right.’

‘I want to make sure I’m insulting her properly in the letter.’

‘What letter?’ I asked slowly.

‘The letter I’m writing to that Spik chick.’

Oh no.

‘Cheeky hoor,’ Brigit’s voice continued. ‘Who does she think she is to be rude to me? Isn’t that good? Spik chick? And because we’re Irish, we’re Mick chicks. Let’s see if we can think of any more.’

‘Would you not be better off writing a letter to Carlos?’ I suggested tentatively.

I could hear her muttering ‘Bick, cick, dick, eick, fick, gick, hick… No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because then he’d know I cared about him.

‘You know,’ she added, ‘if your woman is going to last as Carlos’s girl she’ll need to be good at two things.’

‘What are they?’

‘Blow-jobs and forgiveness.’

The phone rang. Both of us dived headlong onto it, me in the living-room, Brigit in her bedroom. Brigit got there first. Even as a child she’d always had marvellous reflexes. Many was the happy hour we’d spent thumping each other just below the kneecap, with the edge of a ruler, shouting ‘It moved!’

‘It’s for me,’ she called.

About seven seconds later she ran back into the living-room and gasped. ‘Guess who that was.’

‘Carlos.’

‘How did you know? Anyway, he wants to apologize to me. So, er… he’s coming round this evening.’

I said nothing. Who was I to judge?

‘So, come on, let’s tidy this place up, he’ll be here in half-an-hour.’

I half-heartedly crumpled up empty tortilla bags and beer cans and dragged my duvet back to my bedroom.

Carlos didn’t come in half-an-hour. Or in an hour. Or in an hour-and-a-half. Or two hours. Or three hours.

Brigit disintegrated over the course of the evening, just fell apart in slow motion.

‘I don’t believe he’s doing this to me again,’ she whispered. ‘After the last time, he promised he wouldn’t torture me like this.’

At an hour-and-a-half, she cracked and made me ring him. There was no answer. Which pleased her because she thought it meant he was en route. But when he hadn’t arrived twenty minutes later she had to give up on that idea.

‘He’s with her, the little girl Spik,’ she moaned. ‘I can just feel it. I know it, I’m a witch, my feelings are always right.’