She appeared as if from nowhere.  I was behind the bar, polishing glasses.  I leant down to put one away, and as I stood up again she was at the other side of the counter.

"For crying out loud, Mary, I wish you'd use the door like everyone else.  I nearly had heart failure, then."

She shook her head.  "No, you're alright, Sonny.  I'd have been told if your time was due."

"That's... disturbing.  I really don't want to know that sort of thing.  White wine?" I asked, reaching for the bottle.

"Oh Gawd no!  After the time I've had?  I'll have a Bushmills.  In fact, I'll have a double.  You would not believe the trouble I've had.  Gawd, what a night, and no mistake."

I poured her an Irish whiskey.  "This isn't like you, Mary," I commented.

And it wasn't.  Mary was one of those people most often described as 'the life and soul of the party'.  It was ironic, if you came to think of it.  She could hold her drink better than any sailor, but a white wine just loosened her stays enough for her to become herself.  She had a voice like an angel.  True, it was like the Angel of Death, but her songs were filled with fun and gusto, and after a couple of more wines, filled with ribaldry and single entendres.  People would laugh and join in with the less obscene choruses, and forgive her the odd wrong note, or wrong octave, come to that.  I don't know whether it was a reaction to her job, or whether she was a naturally ebullient person who had chosen a really inappropriate career.

Not that Banshee is a career, exactly.  More of a calling, if you pardon the expression.

"Trouble with the O'Sheas?" I asked.  I'm a barman.  It's my job to ask those sort of questions when the bar is quiet.

"Trouble?  Trouble?  When have they ever been anything but?  But this one, oh..." and she clenched her fist around a spot of air as though she were squeezing the last drop of juice from a lemon.  "...Oh, if she weren't an O'Shea, I'd... I'd... marmelise her, so I would.  Her father's turning in his grave."  She checked the clock on the wall.  "At least, he will be in a few hours.  That reminds me.  Kick me out at two, I've a funeral to attend, God rest his soul."

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

"What's wrong with her?  You can stand there, in front of me, and ask what's wrong with her?  What's right, I'd like to know.  She's turning her back on every single tradition the O'Sheas ever stood for, the little minx.  Her and her education and her gadgets and her... her... damned, screeching, howl of an excuse for music."

I refrained from the obvious remarks about her musical ability.  A Banshee is harmless enough.  Not like an elf with a grievance who could curse your bits till they rotted and fell off.  But she's only harmless in as much as a piercing shriek at two o'clock in the morning is harmless.

"I love the family dearly, as well you know.  Sure, and isn't it my blessing and curse to do so?  What's in it for me?  Hanging around, getting to know them, looking over them, sort of thing.  Then, just as I'm really getting to know one of them, they up and die.  And then I have to start all over again with the next generation.  Where's the profit in that, eh?

"It was bad enough when they moved.  Just upped sticks and crossed the Irish Sea.  I was sick as a dog, hiding on that cursed ferry.  And now, here am I, doomed to languish in this hated land, no offence to yourself, ever pining for the green hills of home.

"So the young master, the latest one, what's his name?"  She squinted at the ceiling for inspiration.  "Damn, they come and go so fast I can't keep up with them.  Sean!  That's your man.  He was driving back from Manchester.  I got a message."  She pointed upwards and raised her eyebrows.  "From up there.  Sean was going to catch a bus.  On the motorway, head on in his car.  Bang!  And he's waking up in the hospital, dead. 

"Well, I have to warn her, don't I?  I can't warn him, even though I wanted to.  They..." and she looked pointedly upwards again, "...won't let me.  But I had to warn her, didn't I?  His daughter, even though she's as Irish as Baileys Cream.  Oh, sure, she's an O'Shea by birthright, but she was born over here.  It's not the same.  Honest, she's as Irish as the mayor of New York.  Even so, it was my duty and burden to let her know that her father was on his way Home, if you get my drift.

"So, off I went, off to their flat in London.  I ask you, a flat?  They had a castle once, you know.  Sure, and Joseph O'Shea could drink.  Drank the whole castle into the moneylenders' hands.  But anyway, I know my duty, and I'll fight anyone who says I don't.

"So, traditionally I would hide in the rafters, inconsolable, but they're on the third floor and the roof is fifteen floors above them, so that's out the window for a start.  So I just corporealized in their hallway and did a bit of sub voce wailing, for to keep the noise down, you understand.  Those apartment buildings have walls the thickness of cigarette paper. 

"Nothing!  I was expecting a shriek, a scream, even a sob.  But there was no reaction from indoors at all.  She was there, right enough.  I know these things.  My soul is forever bound to their lineage.  Plus I could smell something cooking in the oven.  But she didn't even ask who was there.

"So I upped the volume a little.  Put in a little resonance too.  Just enough quaver to hint at the dread anguish, sort of thing.  Still nothing.

"'Right, Missy,' I thought.  'Let's see you ignore this.'  And I let her have it, full volume.  Oh, it's been generations since I've let it all out like that.  Not since I had to drown out the great storm of 1792, aye, and the battle cries too.  The light fixtures swayed.  Windows cracked.  Neighbours banged on the wall.  Still the little... angel ignored me.

"An hour I wailed.  A whole bloody hour!  My throat is raw.  She still never even blinked.

"So, tell me.  By all the saints and their mothers, what the blue blazes is an MP3 player?"