The morning of his wedding the geese woke him. An argument had broken out among the birds. He watched the males, with necks lowered, begin battle then he went below. The Teskeys were squeezing blackberries into white pails in the kitchen. He washed, and Arthur Teskey drove him to the church.

He sat on his empty side one seat ahead of Matti Bonner. The church was bare and dark. The grain in the wooden seats shone. He could smell the Brilliantine from his neighbour’s hair. He heard the steps of the Methodists and the Palatines entering the church. “Good luck, Boss. They’re good auld stock,” whispered Matti. Then, from among the other steps, he picked out hers.

Afterwards, if she had let him, he would have driven straight back to Northern Ireland. Instead, she had him drive her through the Ring of Kerry. On to Kinsale, to Wexford, all the places he had never been. She had him promise that he would take her South each year. They drove to Westmeath, then Monaghan, then home.

As her family had done in the South, Maisie set apple trees and fed the apples to the geese she bought at Enniskillen market. Now it was the sound of geese that started Jonathan Adams’ days in the North. She set a herb garden. Cherry trees. Placed flower-sprigged pillows and peach sheets in the visitors bedrooms. And in their own – white and navy reversible bed linen. In quick succession, when Jonathan Adams was in his late forties, she had two daughters, Catherine, named after Maisie’s mother, and Sara.

“They were both conceived in Rathkeale,” she told him.

“It accounts,” he replied, “for their reluctance to be specific.”

From the beginning he expected a policeman’s daughters to be beyond reproach. He took them to school, to Sunday school, to services. One on either hand, he descended the barracks steps. He washed them in the bath together. He was an old man graced by the miracle of young daughters. And the first thing their father did when they had learned to speak was to send them to elocution and drama classes. They learned to balance the sound of a word on their palate before they spoke it. He did not want any child of his to find themselves before a congregation or audience stumbling over the meaning of that word “I”.

They were taught the trumpet and the violin. Maisie made them velvet pouches to place over the chin rests. Their small heads fell sideways behind the bow. A moment’s silence while they fretted and grimaced and tried to remember the tune. He t them to the spring agricultural shows in Enniskillen. Huge brown bulls with white loins stared at them through the railings. Each side of him they stood on Remembrance Days by the monument. They watched the Salvation Army Band and clapped when he clapped.