I’m in the wrong fucking house, for the wrong fucking reason. How the fuck did I get here? Where did Sunday go? He looked round him in alarm and the recollection of other days spent in those rooms flooded through him. Sitting there, well removed from her, he again felt her mind entering his. He jumped to his feet. I have to get out of here! As he walked up the street in Corrloch he found he still had a mouthful of vodka kept in a ball on his tongue. He stopped outside the prefab primary school with its red chairs, painted flowers and multicoloured maps of the world. Watched by the children inside, he stood hitching, but when the first vehicle that came did not stop he started walking.

Again he was on the road to Belmullet in an east wind. He passed the turning for Aghadoon and thought of going home. He passed the Church of the Holy Family – a ball-alley of red girders – and stood a moment thinking. He continued on. The wind howled through the shuttering on the new mushroom-shaped water towers. A plane from Knock airport flew over the town towards America as he entered the hotel. Guiltily he stood in the foyer and watched the gardener ascend a ladder to change a light bulb. Very uncertain of himself he searched through his pockets for change. He had none. He rang the theatre, reversing the charges. The call was refused.

“Try again,” he told the operator. “My name is F-E-R-R-l-S, Jack,” he said angrily spelling his name out.

“I can try.”

Then he overheard the girl in the theatre say that she was not to allow any calls through to the rehearsal room.

“I’m sorry,” said the operator.

“Tell her,” said Jack, “that I’m the author of the bloody play.”

Another few seconds silence.

“I think,” said the operator, “that she is aware of that.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Excuse me,” said the operator, and she rang off. Jack smiled across at Mrs Moloney and carried on talking into the void. “Catherine,” he said, “it’s good to hear from you. How are things?” He listened with a false laugh to imagined replies. “Great! Great!” he said and chuckled cheerfully into the receiver. He spoke of spring, politics, and wished everyone well. And hoped – he was smiling up at the gardener – to see them all soon. “See you on opening night,” he said expansively. “There you are now,” he said to Mrs Moloney, as he replaced the phone. “It was as easy as that.”

Each day he walked over the fields or took the road from his isolated cottage in Aghadoon to the Adams’ house in the village of Corrloch and from there took the road back again to Belmullet town and the Erris Hotel. It was a bewildering triangle. Sometimes he was on the road for hours. And on the roads the people gave him that look that people give when they think they’re safe. He has it – he has the disease!