Jack turned to look at him, the schoolboy face, the simple hands, the brown eyes high in the sockets and the sockets high in the head, the marvelling forehead. Jack pointed at the baseball cap. “Have you been across the water?”

“Not at all.” He leaned closer and looked into Jack’s eyes.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Leitrim.”

“Holy God,” he said, “they have their problems there, too. Would you like a drink?”

“No thanks,” said Jack.

“You’re better off. They don’t tell you everything when you’re drunk,” and he tapped his skull.

Now, both men looked at the street through the lace curtains waiting for Catherine. Soon the man’s sister loomed in the lounge. She gestured over her shoulder sharply with her thumb in that condescending, familiar manner used with someone you consider touched. Her brother looked at her a long time. There was a mild rebellion in his failure to recognize her. Behind her, the American brother hovered uncertainly.

“I’ll have to go now,” he said, looking at his sister.

“Goodbye,” said Jack.

“Good luck, Leitrim,” he replied.

He saw her on the road to the west, foot to the ground in the Lada, African freedom songs playing on the car stereo. Or with her head firmly slanted as she held the car in first at some lights.

He did not want to think of the past; she had given herself to him – perhaps there was a note of hesitation, maybe it was not complete commitment, maybe some part of her was holding back – but there was hope.

What words he could conjure seemed trite and inconsequential. How extraordinary it was that he could describe what he saw – the contents of a sun lounge or what’s afoot on a village street – and yet not be able to articulate the chaotic events that had thrown their lives into turmoil. These, too, had a sequence. But where do you step into a life to say: Here it begins!?

Some part of him had stopped on the hour. A part of him was refusing to go forward till something terrible happened. He saw the gardener at the bar.

“I met your lady friend as she was leaving town last Sunday,” sneered the gardener.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. She was asking if you were drinking.”

“What did you say?”

“What could I say?” replied the gardener.

Everyone at the bar stopped talking. Just when everything seemed possible, the nightmare had started again.

“Well I’m sober now,” declared Jack.

“Is that so?” said the gardener, and he laughed.

“I think I’ll go a bit further,” said Jack. At that moment his sobriety seemed a small price to pay for happiness. He always thought that the price would be more ephemeral, exotic, metaphysical. He felt humiliated and debased that her love demanded something as mundane as sobriety. A few weeks had passed and he’d been sober. She, too, wherever she was, was sober. Let us grow old and sober together. Yes, why not. She was coming to see him. But what did it all mean? Why did it feel so trivial? How do you build from within as your identity falters? He left the hotel.