“There’s the buck back,” said one of the priests. “Call me Peter,” he added. “We hear you do a bit of writing.”

“I’m afraid you have the wrong man,” said Jack.

If she’d been coming today, she’d have been down by now.

“Sit down with us,” said Father Peter, “and give us some of your crack.”

He sat down with the priests. They all sat round waiting for Catherine.

2

Walking the Triangle

While he slept his body had ballooned out. A calf-hide receptacle of warm blood, he lay on his side. The panic that was his first reaction, could not be smoothed away. Everything was charged with static.

He got up and dressed. His clothes stank of damp heat. Fungus had bloomed overnight on the walls. As he entered the middle room Gay Byrne’s voice suddenly boomed forth speaking to a woman of some distant sexual problem. “Jesus Christ,” said Jack, and switched the radio off. He threw half a mackerel from a Donegal Catch packet to the wild cat who was screaming at the door. When Daisy ran under his feet, full of earnest early-morning enthusiasm, Jack roared at him. The dog, his tail curled up under his rump, backed away into a corner of the room. “And stay there!” shouted jack. He saw the misshapen image of his own face in the dog’s black eye as the animal circled the table.

“Stop looking at me,” he said to the dog. Daisy immediately turned away.

Jack spat out a globule of sick. The white fluid turned dry as if he had spat on a hot pan.

Something had happened to his mind. His consciousness had always been protected by a sieve, but while he’d slept the holes had grown larger. Now the holes were as big as cherrystones. And they were growing bigger by the minute.

He put one hand on the mantelpiece and stayed that way a few minutes. Where did Sunday go? I must have slept through it all. Then, sitting by the radio, he saw a bottle of sherry standing, the cork still half in. And tenderly he thought with a smile: I saved that for myself.

The priests left that.

The bottle was half full. He watched the bottle. If I start on that I’ll never telephone. I must do it while I’m sober. It’s eleven-fifteen. The first train is into Ballina. The first train has left Castlebar. She has not come. That’s the position. Maybe she’s been and gone. Maybe she has driven straight to the Adams’ house in Corrloch and is still there. I should walk up and see. Three and a half mile to Corrloch. Six miles to Belmullet. Is she in Dublin still? What did the fucking gardener tell her? Maybe she never left. Did she have an accident? Maybe I should go there. I can’t make Dublin now unless I hitch. Sometimes if you get up and go and don’t think about it, you can do it. If I have to hitch, I mustn’t drink.