Matti Bonner arrived in his blue overalls and with his toolbox. Maisie came out each evening she could get away and gave him instructions. A timber porch was erected round the back. Trellises were raised. Rooms were painted a mint green. He followed her plans exactly. She supervised the plumbing of the kitchen. He ploughed the garden. Set apples trees. Then one night as she and Jonathan sat in the police car surveying the house she said: “I think Matti should be your best man.”

“You must be out of your mind.”

“He brought us together,” she said, “and it was a costly experience for him.”

“It’s not our fault he lost a finger.”

“If he hadn’t we would not be here.”

“If that man is to be my best man,” said Jonathan horrified, “there is not one of my family will attend the wedding.”

“It’s only right that he be our witness.”

“They won’t come, I tell you.”

“Maybe they didn’t intend to from the beginning. I don’t think your brother Willy approves of me.”

“Matti is Catholic.”

“I know that. But remember you’ll be miles from here. It will all be happening in another part of the world.”

“I dare say.”

“Now go up there to his house and ask him.”

“Now?”

“Yes, right now.”

Jonathan pulled back the gate and tapped on Matti’s door. The labourer stepped out into the twilight in his vest.

“Sergeant,” he said.

“Matti,” said Jonathan.

They stood there a few moments. “Will you come in?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said the Sergeant. “I have a question to put to you.”

“Aye?”

“It entails a certain amount of travelling.”

“I see.”

“Well, I can bring you down, but you might have to come home on your own.”

“From where, pray?”

“The county Limerick. You see, I have never been down there,” he said with embarrassment.

“I’d be glad to, Sergeant.”

“Well that’s that then. I should add that the woman out there in the car wants you as my best man.”

“She does?” asked Matti in amazement.

They left together the day before the wedding. It was the Sergeant’s first time south of the border that he had so astutely protected all those years and suddenly he found himself on collapsing roads that grew narrow, and then narrower. “Aisy, Sergeant,” said Matti Bonner. Each town was announced by a handball alley and a dance hall. Catholic spires and cathedrals, treeless, flush with Roman excess, sat on the hills while the grey Protestant churches, behind beeches, stood at the end of old-world streets. Gypsy camps, with piles of lead, galavanize sheets and batteries, were scattered on the side of roads. The two men stopped for weak tea, rashers, sausages and eggs in Galway town.

“What do you think, Sergeant?” asked Matti Bonner.

“It’s not as bad as I thought.”

Then as they approached Limerick bunting flew overhead.