In the afternoon he walked the three miles to Corrloch to O’Malley’s bar and drank coffee that disorientated him. He sat there one afternoon before a gas fire and listened. He ordered a Smithwicks beer. It had no head. No bubbles. The froth was flat and yellow-covered. He drank more coffee.

He began to piss every few minutes. He walked past the Adams house to see was there any sign of life. But the house was cold and dark. He stood by the window and peered in. He was startled to see the wild reflection of his face. He stepped back frightened.

He walked the white road through the night. Unable to sleep, he’d go out for a piss and watch the lights of the few cottages that lay beyond him in Aghadoon.

“Eddie,” he said.

“Ha-ho.”

“Eddie,” he said again. “Have you cast the play?”

“I have.”

“Is she in it?”

“She is.”

“Well I don’t fucking want her in it.”

“It was you asked me to arrange it, for Christ’s sake.”

“Well, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Are you drunk or what?”

“What’s that to do with it?”

“Well it’s too late now. She’s in it and that’s that.”

“Fuck you, Eddie,” he said. “You can’t have the play. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you and I think you’re fucking crazy.”

“I don’t want her in it, do you hear?” he shouted, and slapped down the phone. He stood in the hallway of the hotel and glared at the gardener. The moment he most dreaded had come. “What the fuck are you looking at?” he shouted at the gardener in the Erris Hotel. Then he called for more whiskey.

He woke at one o’clock.

He walked to the kitchen opening all the windows of the cottage as he went. He boiled the kettle. Then the hangover struck. Suddenly he felt a burning pain in his lower back. “Good Jesus,” he said. The first bottle he found he drank from. Each move he made re-echoed in his mind. He drank the last of the poitín. He made toast. He went down the garden to the toilet. All the grass and the small shed stank of piss. He vomited once, two, three times. In the kitchen he rinsed his mouth. He found an old glass of whiskey and drank it. Then he rinsed his mouth again.

I’ve fucked everything up, haven’t I, he thought, as he set off for Belmullet. Every few yards he stopped to puke. It took him hours to walk to town in the driving wind. Immediately he entered the bar he ordered a double gin.

“Will you have one?” he asked the gardener.

The gardener stood up and left.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked Hugh.