She had got so carried away that she had forgotten all about the birdwatcher’s existence. That he was even there. That he existed at all. He had become a mere extension of her pleasure. She kissed his face intending to go. Her dress lay against his leg.

“I’m too old for you,” he said.

There was a brief silence.

Then she looked down and saw the size of his penis, so swollen she wondered how it would fit into her.

She asked: “Are you all right?”

She curled her hand round it, then he lay her back again. She said no, but he searched and found the place. Ever afterwards, even before her most passionate love-making, there was an argument in her mind, the argument that began when this man continued on after she said no.

Yet always also remained her sexual propensity for the stranger.

He shouted after her as she ran off. She cycled home without stopping. She ran through the house and tried the handle of Sara’s door. But it was locked. She knocked but Sara would not answer. “I know you are in there,” Catherine called. She sat with her back to the door. She waited for ages, but Sara did not come out. So, she told no one about that first love-making, which when she was older she called rape, when she opened her eyes and saw the hand that belonged to a stranger, when she’d lain with a birdwatcher in Glenlara and forgotten that he existed.

In his room, Jonathan Adams was engulfed in the history of fear. If he died, right now, he wondered, where would he be in his next moment of consciousness?

If someone shot him now, would he suddenly dart awake after the resurrection? Would all that confused him now have been put to rights? Would Nimrod be there? Would Semiramis be there? Would Maisie? So Abraham departed, the Bible said, simply.

14. As Gaelige

14

As Gaelige

The study of local history took Jonathan Adams out of doors again. He went in search of news of the Godstone. He was directed by Joe Love to go to P. Noone’s public house in Belmullet town to hear the story of what the locals called the Naomhog – the small saint. He ordered a lemonade from the son of the house, who was behind the bar. Everyone stayed quiet for a time.

“Do you think will it rain?” young Noone asked.

“I don’t know,” someone replied.

“Will it blow?”

Then the old lady seated against the wall, proprietor of the pub, put the question to a Cork meteorologist who worked at the weather station.

“You should know,” she said.

The man looked into his glass.

“What,” she persisted, “is the weather going to be like?”

The weatherman went back on his stool, clutching the counter. He looked over, his small teeth bared with amusement, at Jonathan Adams.

“Ask me tomorrow,” laughed the weatherman.