Conor's hand is broken. It's something called an impact fracture. The knuckle of his middle finger hit the wall so hard the bone snapped halfway down his hand. He was in A&E for eight hours waiting to get seen to last night. Apparently Friday's a bad day to hurt yourself. The injuries start rolling in about half an hour after the offices close down for the weekend, apparently. He kept getting superseded by people in more danger. And then all they did was put a tight stiff dressing round it. You don't get a plaster on your hand, it seems. He can still work it and all, but it gives him pain.

"At least," I told him, "You'll not have to write out your exam answers with it."

That didn't help him much. He's more upset about Monday. Last hurley game of the season and he can't play. Paddy Hegarty's getting the cap.

"Do you want me to go and break his hand too?"

"Do you not think you've done enough?"

"I said I was sorry. Anyway, the offer stands."

It's probably not a good idea for us to be drinking. Aside from the fact it's the middle of the afternoon, and I think Conor's still recovering from Thursday night anyway, things are still a bit shaky. But we have to get rid of what's stashed at the shed. The building itself has to be passed on, yeah, but this stuff is ours. Hard won, stolen, fought for, scrimped and saved for. Leave this for whatever wanker Conor picked off the U-16 squad for his inheritance? The fuck we will…

The drinking is completely necessary. Therefore, there is absolutely no point in worrying about any possible consequences. One way or another, this is going to happen. We'll probably be okay once we start working through the remains of the grass we stole off Noel a couple of weeks ago.

For a while Conor listens for the gaelic results on the radio. Completely dominates the joint too, the leech, but then again he's in pain. I actually really should have asked what sort of painkillers he was already on but it's too late now, and anyway, he's starting to relax a bit.

Then there are no more sports results on the radio, and it's all just music. The sky outside the window starts to turn this really gorgeous orangey-red. All of a sudden it seems important to say it again and maybe properly mean it this time; "Conor, I'm really sorry I ducked. Well, no, I'm not, because you would have smashed my face open, but I'm sorry you hurt your hand because I ducked."

There's a long, long pause, during which I can hear my too-fast heartbeat in my ears, where my vision goes up and down with these little red swells round the outsides of my eyes and then he says, "I'm sorry I tried to smash your face open."

I calm, completely, in that second. Everything's fine again. Everything's warm and mellow and sort of wiggly at the edges, which is okay.

I tell him, "I'm going out to try and get another squirrel. Do you want to come and watch for park keepers?"

He thinks about it while I'm getting the air rifle ready. The air rifle doesn't really feel like much anymore. It feels like a toy, more than anything. But it'll do when I only want the tail. I actually really, really want the tail, like, more than I ever did. Even the last time, when I really wanted it, I didn't want it like this. I'm not telling Conor any of that though, because he'll think I'm a psycho, and he'll ask me why, and I don't really know.

"Yeah okay," he says. I help him up and he switches off the radio. But it was in the middle of a song, so it's annoying me, and I keep sort of humming along. And then, the two of us walking along up the overgrown back of the park, fearless squirrel hunters, I'm humming and Conor starts in with the words. And it's like four seconds before you hear, "So I'll start a revolution from my bed, 'cause you said the brains I had went to my head." And there are early flowers strangling themselves with undergrowth to illustrate the next line By now we're getting sort of into it and it's all honest and true, the opposite of those stupid sheepy fuckers singing My Way the other night, "Stand up beside the fireplace, take that look from off your face, you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out!"

And then there's a chorus, but now I'm sort of thinking, "Shh, shh, Conor, shut up-" He's working his way through remembering the next verse and doesn't hear me. "Conor, shut up! We're probably scaring away any squirrels."

That floats around in his head for a minute. "No…" he says, slowly, "No, because do you never see those princess films your sisters used to watch? Because you're supposed to sing. You get deer and birds and everything coming when you sing."

"I don't think that works on proper animals, though, I think that's only cartoon ones."

"Oh. Right. Jim?"

"What?"

"Who the fuck is Sally?"

We wonder for a long, long time about who Sally could be, discussing it very quietly amongst ourselves. We end up sitting ready, waiting, by that tree where I last saw one of the bushy tailed feckers disappear.

"We won't look back in anger, will we?" Conor says to me. It sounds like he's smiling, but I'm not going to look. I've just spotted prey. He's munching something out on the end of a branch, all yum-yum and not even thinking of me. Which is good. I hope he's happy and he doesn't even know what hit him. Very slowly, looking at his back, I stand up and take aim.

Then there is good news and bad news. The bad news is, I didn't actually hit him. Maybe winged him. The good news is, he fell twelve feet or so down off his branch, so he's not going to run away before I get there. I pick him up and he's not dead either. Just lies there in my palm, breathing hard. His neck's not broken or anything, which surprises me. I think it's shock more than anything. "It's okay," I tell him. "You might actually be okay, okay? I only want your tail, so just don't get at me and you might still be okay."

"Are you talking to the squirrel?" Conor says over my shoulder.

"Do you have a tail?"

"…No."

"Then yeah, I'm talking to the squirrel. C'mon. There's a knife back at the shed."

He's shaking, poor little bugger, so I carry him in the pocket of my jumper. The squirrel I mean, not Conor. He wouldn't fit. Conor carries the rifle in his good hand and I carry the furry prize back to the shed. This one is grey. My first squirrel I got was red. But they do that, don't they? The greys get in and force the red out and kill them and stuff. Really, I'm probably doing a service here. This is, like, a squirrel war-criminal or something, so I'm doing the best thing for everybody. And it means his tail will look even better when I nail it up next to the other one.

Maybe I'll take it with me when we go. Like, lucky charm sort of thing? I know it's supposed to be really stupid to keep trophies, but it's never done me any harm with anything else I ever killed or anything, so…

Back at the shed, I put the shivering squirrel on the table-crate and get Conor to hold him down. Then I stretch his tail out long and pull all the hair out away from the base so it'll still look fluffy. The knife's not great. It's just a stupid thing we used to keep around before we got the air rifle. Really should probably do this with a cleaver, something that'll go through quick and clean. But it's sharp enough to do the trick.

Conor looks the other way and says, "Do you think Sally's somebody's girlfriend?"

"Nah, she sounds single in the song. Sister, maybe. But we can't just say that because loads of people have sisters called Sally, or people they've broken up with called Sally, so that still doesn't work." And yeah, that's all the time it takes, because by then the little tail is off, and the little animal is back out of shock and fighting again, struggling so that Conor can't hold him one handed and he takes off, oh, like a shot, you'd be so proud of him, like a sprinter towards the door. He never gets there, though. He collapses down off his fat little legs before he ever tastes fresh air.

"Aw, Jesus, get it out," Conor says, poking at it with the butt of the gun. I bat it away and pick him up again. See, he's still not dead yet. He's still breathing. Which is sort of incredible to me. I sit down against the wall and keep him with me, stroking the back of the steely head with the back of my finger. Death's such a weird thing, y'know? Like it can be slow and you can fight it, like this little fella? Or sometimes Death's fast, and strong, and it just jumps you and that's it, bang, goodnight, you're done…

"Conor, I have to tell you something. Like, if you and me are running out of here in like, five days, Christ, five days. I have to tell you something. Because you're the only person who I really care if you know the truth or not and you're the one person who never believed it and I just let you and I can't do that if we're getting away from here." I think I'm bringing him down, between dying squirrels and now suddenly telling stories. It just feels really, really important. "But you have to let me just tell it and finish it, okay? And really, really, please, don't walk out."

He nods and sits down.

It's really hard to talk to him. I talk down into the squirrel's beady eyes as they slowly, steadily start losing their sparks. "Y'know what everybody says happened in London and we always just laughed about it?"

"It's… It's like this. You remember when I got sent over there. Which wasn't fair, because I never did anything to Ma for her to pack me off like that. I heard her saying on the phone she couldn't cope. What had I ever done to her, y'know? I always tried to just be quiet and do things right and not give her any reason and she never… But anyway, yeah, I went to live with Da in London. I was alright, though, it was sort of cool. First I'd ever been away from Dublin was that, so… What were we? Fourteen, fifteen? Yeah, somewhere in between. Everything felt cool then.

"But it turned out to be a poxy little flat, and a box room with a bed crushed into it. Turned out to be a new school, which wasn't like ours and nobody could understand my accent and they called me pikey because they thought I was one.

"Stop looking at me like that, Conor, I know I've told you this part before. But it's important.

"Because I never told you what Da did for a living, did I? Mythic distant father in the mythic distant metropolis and what did he do for a living? Well, every night at sunset, as all the clinics along Harley Street closed for the night – Harley Street's where all the posh doctors and that shite are – Da would drive along in a van, and go from back door to back door, collecting the sharps buckets.

"A sharps bucket is what they put anything sharp in when they're finished with it. Like blades and things they can't sterilize and reuse. And needles. Loads of needles. That's what my Da did for a living. He took the sharps away to be destroyed.

"So we get into week two of me getting called pikey, right? And there was this thing on the news about illegal Botox injections. Y'know that stuff that freezes your face, like singers and all get? News says that this stuff is actually lethal-poisonous, if it gets into you wrong. So… So don't ask what made me do it then. I probably knew at the time but I don't really remember what I was telling myself.

"But this one night, me and Da had a curry and he asked me about school and I told him nothing true and all that was normal. And then I told him I was going out this particular evening. I think I said swimming, but I might have made that up because of what comes after. I'm pretty sure I really did tell him I was going to the leisure centre. But I didn't. I just left the flat when he went to get ready for work. Went out and got in the back of his van. It was a mess anyway, like his flat was. That's how you could tell I didn't really live there anyway; my room was bare and tidy and the rest of the place was… But anyway, what I mean, I hid under this black plastic sheet in the back corner that had never ever moved and had nothing really under it.

"Da drove about collecting sharps buckets. Whenever he left them in the back I'd get up and look inside them. Over and over again, there was nothing. And then, finally, there was a bucket full of those needles like I'd seen on the telly. Me, I was thick, I wasn't even thinking they might be full of something else. Could have been a fecking methadone program or something. But it wasn't, y'know, it was that stuff, that Botox. Botox comes from 'botulinum toxin', did you know that? I bet none of them singers and all know that or they'd hardly do it. Not all of the needles were empty either. Most of them had some traces, little drops, but some of them were still half full. See, once they've stuck them in one face it's illegal for them to stick it in any other."

"I did that two more nights. I kept a box of the things under my bed. Don't ask me why. I don't know what I wanted them for, at that stage.

"No, that's a lie. I knew. Because of the name-calling. Because even the teachers were never really listening to me, just sort of squinting like it was my fault I didn't sound like them. I mean, over an accent? People really make you feel that shite over an accent? But it fecking mattered. Jesus, fourteen, Conor, of course it fecking mattered, everything mattered… I just kept thinking myself, just one of them. If I could get to just one of them, then they'd all shut up. I had this dream all the time, that I'd bring the box in in my schoolbag and spend a whole day just sneakily poisoning them all one-by-one. I had it in my head it would be instant and freaky. It's not, not with small doses anyway. You need something like strychnine for th-Anyway…

"But I was never going to do anything with them, not really. I just felt better because I had them.

"And then I actually went swimming. I picked the wrong day for it. There were all kinds of kids from all over England. There was some big competition the next day. I don't even know what it was. There were just loads of really irritating competitive pricks who all seemed to know each other, like the under-fifteen swimming community was just this big nasty family, y'know?

"One of these was a ginger irritating competitive prick who kept scratching his knees. They were all hard and pink. Flaky. Ankles too. One of these bastards that has the best of everything, really thinks he is something? He had amazing trainers, they were the same ones you got for your birthday that year. Not that I'm saying you're like that, I don't mean that. I mean he probably didn't have to wait for a birthday to get something like that, y'know?

"I swear, I never opened my mouth to him. I never looked at him. I was just putting my stuff in a locker and he started laughing. Fucking stupid fucking plastic fucking bag, Conor, it's such a ridiculous thing when I'm thinking about it, but that's what it was. He was laughing because I'd brought my stuff with me in a frigging Tesco bag.

"He was a big bastard too. You know me; even now I'm fucked in a fair fight. I wasn't going to do anything about it. I was walking away. But I did mutter at him to, like, piss off or something? And that was enough. Says him, "My daddy-" and yeah, he was that kind of prick, "My daddy says all the Irish are good for is driving vans and laying tarmac." And well, that was that. You can imagine. That was that.

"These days we'd know it for what it was. Lanky ginger kid with fucked-up skin at a swimming pool; he was taking it out on me before anybody did it to him. We'd spot that in a second now. But back then… that was that.

"I kept an eye. Found out they were all coming back the next day. Saw him taking pills. Not hard ones, though, little caps, gel sort of things? They're called chlorphenamine. Antihistamines, like you take for hayfever, except they stop you scratching when you've got a skin condition. I only found that out, like, last year.

"So… look, do I really have to tell it? Like, word-for word? Jesus, Conor, stop staring at me…

"I went back the next day. That ginger fucker went out to do, I don't know, practice laps or something. I picked his locker open. Cheap shite, the lock was easy. I poured the pills out on the floor and stuck and every single one of them with leftover face-freezer. He came back before the races and took one and then he was in the pool and he died. That's all. I took-"

No. Conor doesn't need to know what I took. It wasn't a trophy thing, anyway, there was nothing sick about it. It just never occurred to me the bloody things wouldn't fit. Stupid lanky scabby bastard…

"I took my stuff and I took off. His name was Carl. I only found that out after. It was written in his shoes. I mean, nobody could prove anything, nobody really knew anything. Da still packed me back here, though. Ma just sort of sighed. Said, swear to God, I'll never forget it, she said, 'Well, his school uniform'll still fit him'. And then I was back here. Like I'd never left. I sort of feel like London beat me? Like maybe I should go and beat London someday…"

The squirrel's dead now. I get up and, from the doorway, throw him into the bushes. He'll be dinner to something, anyway. I turn back to the shed and Conor is holding the tail out to me. We've got no nails, but I tie it with old string next to the last, ratty tail.

Then he says to me, "Can I walk out now?"

"You can't tell anybody."

"Who would believe me? They all think it's true already." He looks away in the direction I threw the squirrel, with a face on him like he's going to cry. He says, "I'll see you after mass in the morning."

"Alright."

I wish I could tell you about the relief, about confessing? Like, that I could tell you I'm sorry I've put all that on Conor, but how much lighter I feel and all that shite? But there's no relief. Thing is, I'm not sure there was anything there to relieve.

[A/N -To all future readers who might be wondering about the shoelaces, like so many did, you can always message me.]