They drove by glowing fires on the peninsula. Outside Belmullet the three got out of the back of the car into teeming rain, and he was about to make for Annagh Head when Catherine called him. She ran after him. The headlights found her wet cheek. He saw drops of rain glide down her face, stall at the brows, shimmer on her lips, fall from her chin onto her damp gaberdine.

She smiled at him. In the full beam of the headlights Catherine kissed his cheek.

“Well, goodnight,” said Jack.

“Goodnight,” said Catherine, and she stood there in the rain looking after him.

The rain ceased. He was in a land without a horizon. He went on, he came back. He smoked, he cursed himself under his breath, then gave a long wheeze. He stiffened. He barked and sniffed furiously. His armpits grew hollow. Then he spun on his heels, and when he stopped his mind filled with the interior of the chaotic marquee.

“Who’s that?” someone shouted out of the shadows. “Who’s that?” the man asked again.

“Jack Ferris,” Jack whispered.

“I’m Fintan Carmichael,” the other answered. “I was with you in the car. The bitch Lizzie Summers showed me the door the minute I dropped the hand.” He came closer. “Are you not well?”

“I’m grand, thanks.”

“The blondes, they gave you a lesson.”

“Do you say so?”

“You have to understand women.” His companion clapped him on the back. “You have to stand up to them. Else they’ll walk all over you.”

“Is that so.”

“I know them ladies. The Adamses a’ Corrloch.” Fintan Carmichael continued in a conspiratorial way. “You have to watch the chicks of the blue hen.”

“What do you mean?”

“The father was RUC.”

“I know.”

“Aye, but who could blame them? There’s nothing wrong with having a good time.”

The two men stepped on through the night.

“The things I could tell you,” said Fintan Carmichael.

“Work away,” said Jack.

“Oh, if you only knew all the men those ladies have lain with! Isn’t it a terror! The Protestant girls are way ahead of us,” Fintan declaimed. A tickle entered his throat. He grew excited. “A man like you,” he told Jack, “should watch his p’s and q’s. Oh Lord, but they’re wild women. Certainly,” said Fintan. “The Protestant girl,” he blew out loudly, “would make you cross the yard.”

“So that’s how it is.”

“That’s how it is. Women generally,” declared Fintan, “have no shame.”

They reached the fire on Annagh Head. A crowd were sitting round drinking and singing. Some lay fast asleep a few yards away from the flames. A woman was playing a guitar with four strings. Fintan and Jack sat down. Across the fields came two lads driving before them a tractor wheel. They pushed it into the fire. Sparks flew up. The smell of burning rubber spread.

“Come here a minute,” said Fintan.