His mornings began with unfortunate musings and bullying hallucinations. His romantic self had always rebelled against surreal imaginings but now he found himself stalked by abstractions, ringings, morbid fantasies. He raged to get beyond, to get out. To give up the drink, today! To start today! Now! That evening he’d find himself – with all these promises to himself broken and forgotten – drink in hand, waiting on Catherine to come home. The abuse continued right up to the moment he saw her alight from the bus.

As the front door closed behind her, the silence mysteriously returned. The furies departed.

“There’s a community group I know looking for a writer to work with.”

“I’d be no good at that.”

“Yes, you would.”

Through her he established contact with them in West Belfast. They were researching a play about a fictional Republican prisoner who was to be released into the outside world after fifteen years in jail for murdering a policeman. Would Jack be interested? It seemed a way out of the quandary of his everyday life on Belfast Lough. Yes, he said, he’d be interested.

Near St Theresa’s private school at Aitnamona Crescent, they rented a room where the Turf Lodge and Andersonstown meet. The first day he walked in there he found himself among a group of people much like himself – outsiders of English or Southern Irish stock; do-gooders who wanted to write meaningful social drama; young writers with a morbid interest in imagining death by violence; women with an axe to grind; people who felt themselves above religious fighting; social workers who had failed to meet the demands of the streets; strident moralists who pretended to liberalism; people with an insane curiosity into why humans kill; and a few Northern Irish who came and went like spirits searching for the bodies they had once inhabited.

Catherine bought a second-hand Lada for £250 with money she earned from two radio plays with the BBC. Each weekend Jack gave her lessons out at Helen’s Bay. In first gear they went in circles round the Folk Museum. He taught her how to do a hand-brake start and a three-point turn below Cave Hill. Her concentration and single-mindedness was total. They took with them a half-bottle of whiskey to drink from between lessons.

Each morning she drove to the Arts Centre, with him calling out directions as she went – Hollywood Bypass! Marine Parade! Go handy! One way! Now the Sewage Works. Lights! Lights! Now Belfast Airport. Don’t do that! Belfast Harbour. Easy, Catherine! Albert Bridge Road, good woman! Albert Bridge, turn right, turn left, East Bridge Street. Easy! Straight Across! Fuck him! Across Cromac Square. Where are we? Slow now, slower! Shaftesbury Square. Jesus!

He moved into the driving seat. They’d kiss, assuredly and lovingly. And he’d drive from there to Aitnamona. He would scarcely have arrived at his desk when Catherine would phone to see if he was safe.