He looked through the bus window. He wiped away his breath, but what lay beyond could not be identified. Even the surface of the oncoming road was a great mystery. It was hard to believe that a few days ago he had been filled with happiness at the prospect of Catherine’s return. His heart raced as they turned a corner. Fear made the mind settle into the body again, to protect its instrument; he held the seat in front of him; they swung out over the white line, they rose into the air over a bump on a small bridge, then the bus righted itself again.

The physical sickness was itself a reprieve. This will be soon over. It will soon end. And another voice said, Never. You will have to live with this. Forever! The doctrine of endless torments. The unseen world where his misgivings began. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. He felt his face to see whether all his features were still in place. But touch would not reassure him. He needed to see. His eyes needed to see themselves. And yet he longed to rest from this ceaseless activity of naming the parts of the mind. He wanted to close his eyes and let his body be free of this constant surveillance.

They entered the last stretch of road before Ballina.

I’ll never make Dublin if I feel like this! He looked out of the windows but found for a second that nothing he saw was familiar. They stopped for a flock of sheep, haphazardly dabbed with green, to pass. The sheep wandered one behind the other into a field of standing stones. Then, as if someone had reassembled the landscape, it ceased to be strange. I know this bit, he realized. I recognize here. He nodded at someone across the aisle.

“There’s not far to go,” Jack called in a strangely cheerful voice.

“And then, bless us,” complained the woman, “we’ll have to do the same journey all over again on the return.”

He looked at her aghast.

“Are you under pressure?” she asked with a small curtsy of her eyes and mouth.

“It’s severe, Ma’am,” he smiled.

She nodded in reply, then nodded again, and her face filled with sympathy and quiet satisfaction.

In Ballina it was cold. At the entrance to the town a girl, half-dressed, was tied to a pole. A light drizzle, turning to sleet, was falling. Out of the pub opposite women came and began pelting the girl with plastic bags of soot.

“Christ!” said Jack.

“She’s to be married,” his neighbour explained. “She’s a Mullarkey girl from Muinguingane.”

“Oh.”

The girl bent her head and jerked sharply at the ropes that held her. Her blouse in the fracas had been torn so now she had a breast full of soot. Her skirt rode up round her thighs. She was drenched. Quick as it happened it was over. All the women, laughing, returned to the pub.