After Rain by William Trevor

pressed their question it wouldn’t be any good. They knew it was a kind of flirtation, their asking and Mangan teasing with his replies. Mangan was a wag. Both girls were drawn to him.
        ‘Are the ices to our ladyships’ satisfaction?’ he enquired, causing a further outbreak of giggling.
        Gallagher had ordered a banana split. Years ago he used to think that if you filled a room with banana splits he could eat them all. He’d been about five then. He used to think the same thing about fruitcake.
        ‘Are the flicks on today?’ Mangan asked, and the girls said on account of the Pope they mightn’t be. It might be like Christmas Day, they didn’t know.
        ‘We seen what’s showing in Bray,’ Marie said. ‘In any case.’
        ‘We’ll go dancing later on,’ Mangan promised. He winked at Gallagher, and Gallagher thought the day they made a killing you wouldn’t see him for dust. The mail boat and Spain, posh Cockney girls who called you Mr. Big. Never lift a finger again.
        ‘Will we sport ourselves on the prom?’ Mangan suggested, and the girls laughed again. They said they didn’t mind. Each wanted to be Mangan’s. He sensed it, so he walked between them on the promenade, linking their arms. Gallagher walked on the outside, linking Carmel.
        ‘Spot of the ozone,’ Mangan said. He pressed his forearm against Marie’s breast. She was the one, he thought.
        ‘D’you like the nursing?’ Gallagher asked, and Carmel said it was all right. A sharp breeze was darting in from the sea, stinging their faces, blowing the girls’ hair about. Gallagher saw himself stretched out by a blue swimming-pool, smoking and sipping at a drink. There was a cherry in the drink, and a little stick with an umbrella on the end of it. A girl with one whole side of her bikini open was sharing it with him.
        ‘Bray’s a great place,’ Mangan said.
        ‘The pits,’ Carmel corrected.
        You could always tell by the feel of a girl on your arm, Mangan said to himself. Full of sauce the fat one was, no more a nurse than he was. Gallagher wondered if they had a flat, if there’d be anywhere to go when the moment came.
        ‘We could go into the bar of the hotel,’ the other one was saying, the way girls did when they wanted to extract their due.
        ‘What hotel’s this?’ he asked.
        ‘The International.’
        ‘Oh, listen to Miss Ritzy!’
        They turned and walked back along the promenade, guided by the girls to the bar in question. Gin and tonic the girls had. Gallagher and Mangan had Smithwick’s.
        ‘We could go into town later,’ Carmel casually suggested. ’There’ll be celebrations on.’
        ‘We’ll give the matter thought,’ Mangan said.
        Another couple of pulls of the tie, Mangan said to himself, and who’d have been the wiser? You get to that age, you’d had your life anyway. As it was, the old geezer had probably conked it on his own, tied up like that. Most likely he was stiffening already.
        ‘Isn’t there a disco on in Bray?’ he suggested. ‘What’s wrong with a slap-up meal and then the light fantastic?’
        The girls were again amused at his way of putting it. Gallagher was glad to hear the proposal that they should stay where they were. If they went into town the whole opportunity could fall asunder. If you didn’t end up near a mott’s accommodation you were back where you started.
        ‘You’d die of the pace of it in Bray,’ Marie said, and Mangan thought a couple more gins and a dollop of barley wine with their grill and chips. He edged his knee against Marie’s. She didn’t take hers away.
        ‘Have you a flat or rooms or something?’ Gallagher asked, and the girls said they hadn’t. They lived at home, they said. They’d give anything for a flat.
        A few minutes later, engaged at the urinals in the lavatory, the two