“That doesn’t mean I could do it. I don’t even know if I approve of this woman you want me to play.” She lit a cigarette. “And what would happen if your Eddie person didn’t cast me?”

“Of course he will.”

“I couldn’t bear the disappointment after all that’s happened.”

“You’ll get it.”

“If I get it, it would have to be on merit. The difference between you and me is that you don’t give a fuck what people think of you but I care what people think of me.”

“But you’ll go for it?” he asked delighted.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“I’ll ring him.” He leapt up from the table. “That’s great. I’ll ring him and tell him.”

On the road to Belmullet he met a goat. A black-and-white goat with a long gentlemanly snout started to follow him when he reached the Church of the Holy Family. When he’d stop, the goat would stop. When he went on, the goat would go on. He stopped, the goat looked at him like a shepherd dog. He started forward again, and the goat followed him. “Go long,” he shouted, but the goat just moved his yellow shining eyes and stood watching him from the far side of the road. Jack lit a cigarette and dropped his matches. When he went to pick them up, the goat ran off, afraid that the man was about to hurl a stone at him.

“So someone has been ill-treating you, have they?” he said to the goat.

He leaned down again. The goat moved further away and watched him. He reached down one more time and the goat jumped backward.

“Go home!” shouted Jack.

And then as he walked off and the goat stopped where he was, Jack was sorry to lose him. He reached Belmullet town and went into the Erris Hotel and rang Eddie. There were two lassies dressed identically lying alongside a piano, face down, counting dice. Mrs Moloney shouted: “Nessie come here,” but the girls didn’t move.

“Hallo,” they said.

“Hallo, Nessie,” called Jack. “Hallo, Trish.”

“We saw you with Bridie from Glenroe,” said Trish, hanging upside down.

“Did you now?”

“Why isn’t she with you today?”

“She’s gone home.”

A man who worked as a gardener at various places on the mainland and on the peninsula was sitting alone drinking pints of Guinness. Hugh was preparing that evening’s dinner in a room off the bar. Jack could see him piping meringues onto tinfoil on a tray. The two men were talking to each other about race horses and severed limbs and The Late Late Show.

“Give us a brandy, Hugh,” called Jack.