“There you have it. We booted for Galway. And some months later Mayo. I liked Mayo. Through contacts I set myself up as a house-painter. One of the first jobs I got was painting the cop shop in Tuam. I painted the new government offices in Castlebar. I painted the library. And bit-by-bit time went by. The guys don’t think of me and I don’t think of them. But I keep in contact. It’s in my interest.

“It’s history now.

“The guys might see me on the street and they call across and that’s it. They don’t intrude. That’s how I want it. And that’s hopefully how it’ll stay. I can handle that. But I could not handle the guilt-tripping.”

De Largey lifted his pint.

“Once ye don’t start guilt-tripping,” he said, “you’ll be all right.”

Daley the skipper came lumbering over from the bar and laid his hand on Jack’s shoulder. In his other hand he was holding by the stems three balloon glasses of brandy.

“Is it any harm to ask what you boys are talking about?”

“We’re not talking about you anyway.”

“That’s good,” said the skipper, “yous are two nice fellows, believe me. For animal lovers,” he added ironically. The three men drank the brandies in silence. “It’s all fast cars in Killybegs these days,” said Daley after a while. “The boys up here have it made.”

Just before closing time Catherine stepped into the bar. She ran across the room into Jack’s arms. From the moment she saw him the involuntary happiness that flooded up into her being was impossible to control; it welled up in her like hysteria.

“Are you not introducing us to the lady?” asked Daley.

Catherine, very adroitly, took each of their hands, and then a few moments later, drained by the encounter, she let Jack go. Squeezed him and let him go. She began to speak of her journey. The men got up from the table to leave them together.

She looked at him coolly, judging his response to her sudden appearance and what she was about to say.

“I’ve come down to live with you,” she said.

He startled her by laughing.

“C’mon, say something,” she said embarrassed.

“That’s great.”

“Is that all you can say?”

They knocked up a bed-and-breakfast overlooking the midnight sea and an amusement arcade of expensive trawlers. The landlady seemed not to hear their apologies about the late hour, but led them, in her pink dressing gown and fur-lined booties, to a bedroom saturated with holy pictures, memoirs of Los Angeles and photos of the Niagara Falls. The minute she was gone, Catherine turned the Virgin of Sorrows and Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane to the wall.

“Who was that fellow in the bar?” she asked.

“The skipper?”

“No, the quiet one with the eyes.”

“Oh, Theo?”