She is aged nine. Sunday school is just over. There is something strikingly true, he finds, in this portrait of her. She holds the trumpet between her tiny hands on a Sunday afternoon in the Protestant North. She is wearing the uniform of the Salvation Army band. She is in her own room and in that room she weaves no fantasies, but concentrates totally on blowing a recognizable air.

The image brings him great satisfaction. His spirit returns.

He finds his spirit safe at his side and is content. His spirit has a laughing, gangling form. “You’ve been away some time,” Jack says to his spirit. But the mind-spirit, like some stranger, just nods. The nod could be benign, the nod could be dangerous.

“I grieved over your absence,” says Jack.

“Maybe you should stay quiet for a while,” says Leitrim, who is sitting across from him.

Hugh arrived. He brought with him an invitation to the first night of the play. It was opening the following night.

“Did you get one?”

“No,” said Jack.

“Why send one to me?” asked Hugh.

“It’s a way of telling me not to come,” replied Jack. He studied the invitation.

“You take it,” said Hugh. “You should go.”

Jack thought of the train journey from Castlebar to Dublin. The curtain going up. The shouts of Author! Author! Liar! Liar! When Hugh was gone he showed the invitation to the Leitrim man.

“Is that you?” he asked, pointing at Jack’s name.

“Yes.”

“It’s a nice card,” he said.

It was a long delirious day. He let the hours pass. High on Librium and Mogadon, he lay peacefully that night among the sleeping men. With love he watched the Madonna on the wall. The next morning he again imagined making the journey to the east. Hugh rang. A journalist was on the phone from Dublin looking for his telephone number. “I’m not here,” said Jack. It was a true statement. It was a long day, tantalizing, full of the fantasy of journeying, of arriving, moving through the theatregoers. Seeing her above on the lighted stage.