“Forget it.” She tapped the cigarette nervously. “Will we go to Mayo for Christmas?”

“I have to go to Leitrim to see the family.”

“To see all the Bleeding Hearts.”

“Stop, Catherine.”

“‘Stop Catherine,’” she continued, imitating him, “You fucker you.”

He looked at her.

“Ah well, don’t come back then. Go there and stay there. Don’t set a foot inside the door of this house again. Do you hear me!”

“You fascist!” he spat. Suddenly he jumped up.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pinned her back to him. They fell to the floor and lay there breathing heavily.

“Let me up,” she said.

He eased his grip on her neck. She buttoned her coat. She put her feet back into her shoes. “You slept with her, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Did she kiss your arse like I do, you bastard?” she screamed and flailed out with her fists. He caught her again. “Let me go,” she screamed. She left. He waited for hours to see would she return. At three in the morning the bell rang. She was at the door, very drunk, moist-eyed and shaking.

He led her in. He climbed back into bed. She climbed in beside him.

Early next morning he found her arm come round and circle him. She turned him over.

“Did I do that?” she said, touching a bruise on his cheek.

He opened his eyes.

“Forgive me, Jack,” she said. “I think I am going demented.”

“I think I am as well.”

“Oh God, I feel terrible.” She stood up and tottered. He looked at her long white arms and white shoulders. The fairy hair on her stomach. She looked vulnerable and sorry. She sat where she had sat the night before, at the edge of the bed. Flayed by guilt, he waited for her anger to erupt.

Instead she said softly: “I am sorry for hitting you.”

“And I’m sorry for hitting you,” he replied.

“I suppose you think you have me now. That you think you can do with me what you like.”

“No I don’t.”

“Now you’ve had your revenge, will you do something for me?”

“Yes.”

“Will you swear to be true to me?”

He swore he would be true. She swore she would be true. They swore together. “Now,” she said, “you are mine. Remember that.” They walked down the early morning streets. Seagulls were chatting in the middle of a roundabout. “Meet me round one,” she said and kissed his cheek. He bought a noggin of gin at an early morning pub. Then he sat in a park among the Protestant unemployed drinking it. At eleven he walked back to the house. He halted inside the door. A rolled-up Irish Press had arrived from Eddie. A photo of Jack was on an inside page.

“Don’t go in there,” she said, “we’ll have a drink at home.”

“Just one,” he said, entering a bar.