He let a certain amount of time pass. Then he said: “I have just realized that you don’t believe in fiction.”

“You’re wrong,” she answered with conviction. “My trouble is I believe it totally, or not at all.” She looked at him with mock scorn. “In that, I’m like my father.”

They went to a party thrown by Helen, a friend of Catherine’s. He stood by Helen’s side with a tall cold glass of white wine.

“Are you a feminist, too?” asked Jack.

“I like men too much,” she said, “to be a feminist. I need nice male chauvinists to carry my shopping home.”

“You’re disgraceful!” Catherine laughed.

Helen’s room was full of charts of the human body and the human brain.

“Are you by any chance an astrologer?” he asked.

“Not quite,” she replied, “I’m a psychiatric nurse, you might say.”

“Don’t start her,” said Catherine. “Talk of the brain only brings bright spots in front of my eyes. At school certain puzzles used to make me feel faint.”

“Now it’s sex,” said Jack.

“Stop,” said Catherine, poking him.

Then she turned serious.

“All my life I’ve feared madness,” she said.

“And I wanted to commit suicide,” said Helen.

“This is a lovely conversation,” said Jack.

“And then,” said Catherine, “there’s jealousy.”

“Oh,” agreed Helen.

“For a whole year before I met him I was negligent of sex because all of my affairs provoked in me such wanton acts of jealousy that I was afraid someone might get killed.”

“Watch yourself, Jack,” said Helen.

“In fact,” said Catherine, “once I was alone I thought I could please myself physically more than other people could. When I was lonely I used stroke my own breasts.”

Helen nodded: “You can run out of possibilities there in time.”

“Yes,” said Catherine, and she took Jack’s arm.

“I would give anything to be as happy as ye are,” said Helen.

“We have our own troubles,” said Jack.

Then Helen leaned up and put her arms around him and kissed him. It was a bright sisterly kiss. Then she kissed Catherine. “Ye are lucky to have each other,” she said, “and remember, I love you both.” Catherine never left Jack’s side. Helen sang. Catherine sang. Jack danced. Then, towards dawn, they took a taxi home with a driver that knew them both. When Jack went forward to open the door of the house, the taxi-driver whispered to Catherine as she counted out the fare in the half-light of the car interior: “He is in danger here, ye know.”

“What?” she asked, terrified.

“I don’t wanna scar ye,” he said, “but I’ve heard stories about him swinging in and out of pubs with the wrong people. Like it’s none of my business, but you should tell him to be more careful. The whole sectarian thing could start again in the morning.”