“Ah, poor Josie Drum,” said Thady. “She should be up there too, among ‘The Illustrated’. The man above put a fierce cross on Josie – he told her to carry on.”

“If I’d known you were coming,” said Jack, and he pulled the sheet to his chin.

“But is there a man above at all?” continued Thady.

The two cats on the hearth, with high hips and long hind legs, ran when she attempted to pet them, and skulked together in slow motion at the door.

“You’re welcome anyway,” Thady told her. He rose a small face filled with mean humour and brown, racy eyes. “You’ll find glasses and a cup there behind you.” Then he pointed towards the fire. “There’s custard there in a pot, too.”

She looked at Jack. In his vest he had the thin hooped shoulders of a young boy.

“Why don’t you bring me out fishing with you someday?”

“You wouldn’t like it,” said Jack.

“I won’t know till I see for myself.”

“Do you see,” Thady pointed, “do you see there on the sill there’s a bottle.” As Thady poured a dram of crystal poitín into his cup, Catherine looked at Jack, and Jack looked at her. Catherine was a woman to tie scarves about herself, her shoulders, her neck, her head. Even, at times, round her wrist. The fire whooshed and changed direction.

“The custard,” explained Thady, “is for the cats.”

He leaned forward to pour a drop of poitín into her glass. It smelt sharp and medicinal. He caught her eye with his and gave a grin. “He’s not the only man, is Jack, to have a lady come to see him.”

“No?”

“No. I have a girlfriend in America got married, had children, don’t you know. And now that she’s lost her husband she says she’ll be back for me.” He drank a mouthful, held it awhile, then swallowed it. “And I put a new roof on the house, here, for the very day.”

“You should not,” said Catherine, with a straight face, “have built a cage before you trapped the bird.”

“If I,” said Thady, “was a few years younger, this boy here” – and he pointed at his loins – “would be in there” – and he pointed at hers.

This absurd male fantasy made Catherine burst out laughing, and along with her, the men laughed uproariously.

“I’m not supposed to laugh at comments like those,” she said.

“Indeed you’re not,” agreed Thady.

Catherine smelt her glass and tasted the rim. She arched her foot, gave a loose-breasted laugh, and flexed her leg. She drank, then drank again.

“When did you come down?” asked Jack.

“This morning,” she said as she read the fire.

“So you’re by yourself,” he said guardedly.

“Oh, I have plenty of company.”