Putting Out the Stars Read Free Page A

confident really – it might throw her a bit.’
    The amusement was back in Breffni’s voice. ‘God, what do you think of me? I’m hardly going to introduce myself as the one who had a fling with her husband when he was young and
innocent . . . well, young anyway.’
    ‘I know, I know; I just thought you might say it as a joke, or something – you know what you’re like.’
    ‘No worries; my lips are sealed. Talk to you later.’
    ‘See you.’ As she hung up, Laura let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

    Laura O’Neill and Breffni Comerford grew up five numbers apart in a cul-de-sac just off the North Circular Road, where Breffni’s parents, and Laura’s mother,
Cecily, still lived. For six years, the girls walked to school with one mother and came home with the other. When they reached fifth class, the mothers stayed at home. As they were growing up, they
went through phases of Van Morrison and James Taylor and the Smiths. They agreed to differ on Janis Ian, whom Laura loved and Breffni tolerated. They both threw away the walnuts on the tops of
their Walnut Whips, and they lusted after Paul Newman (Laura) and Andy Garcia (Breffni). From fifteen to seventeen they wore only black – apart from their brown school uniforms – and
they listened to Leonard Cohen and Billie Holiday in each other’s incense-filled bedrooms, and read
Lolita
and
To Kill a Mockingbird
and
Wuthering Heights
and
Brideshead Revisited
till their paperback copies fell apart. They agreed that Colin Firth was the ultimate Mr D’Arcy, and that Madonna tried too hard; and they both had secret
tattoos from a holiday in Portugal – a tiny sun on Laura’s lower back and a star on Breffni’s left hip.
    They had their ears pierced at sixteen, and they gave up chocolate at seventeen. Breffni lasted three weeks, Laura almost eleven months. They traded clothes and secrets and diets. They
straightened Laura’s auburn curls and permed Breffni’s silky black hair, to the horror of both mothers.
    They tried and failed to smoke. They sneaked out to drink cider from flagon bottles with local lads down by the river on long summer evenings, and were each other’s alibis the few times
they stayed out all night. Once or twice they recycled boyfriends, but that wasn’t a great success. They cried on each other’s shoulders when their hearts were broken, and once they
held hands and promised God everlasting good behaviour as they waited to find out that Breffni wasn’t pregnant.
    The year they left school, when Laura was almost nineteen and Breffni a few months younger, they went to San Francisco for the summer and stayed with Comerford cousins that Breffni had met once
at a family wedding over six years before. They got a bus around the hairpin bends of Lombard Street and took the ferry out to Alcatraz and rode a cable car up California Avenue. They wandered
around Fisherman’s Wharf and walked through the Castro district, trying not to stare at the jaw-droppingly beautiful men strolling about hand in hand. They signed up for ten Bikram yoga
classes for ten dollars, and staggered home, drenched with sweat, from their first and last class.
    ‘God above – that was like doing it in a sauna.’ Breffni flapped the end of her damp pink t-shirt. ‘I’m wrecked.’
    ‘I nearly slipped when we were doing that tree thing, my mat was so wet.’ Laura quickened her pace to a trot. ‘Bags first in the shower.’
    ‘We’ll see about that.’ Breffni broke into a sudden run and sped past her.
    ‘Hey – you’re supposed to be wrecked.’ Laura slowed down as Breffni disappeared around the corner. ‘Hope you scald yourself.’
    They went fishing at dawn one morning in the bay with Breffni’s uncle’s friend, and watched stripes of crimson and orange and pink lace the sky through the railings of Golden Gate
Bridge as the sun floated up to face another perfect day. Later they managed to catch a salmon, Laura frantically trying