Except for their families, they saw no one. They holidayed far from home. In the Canaries, in South Africa, in Greece. Some began moving their homes into protected areas. The thought of leaving the house that Maisie had designed to enter some estate of identical dwellings seemed a travesty. They talked about it, but didn’t move. They were in a Protestant village. It was safe for a while. The place would protect them. But in other parts the cars belonging to policemen became vehicles that careered into eternity. The police, like the rest of the province, began to watch the war from a chair in front of the TV.

Jonathan Adams would call down to his neighbour’s house to find the dark kitchen filled with gunfire and galloping horses. In his own house he never watched television yet that was where Jonathan Adams sometimes sat in Matti Bonner’s house – before the television, his legs crossed and a look of frustrated revenge in his eye.

There are two things dear to Northern Ireland Protestant hearts: the royal family in England and the Catholic mind. Especially the Catholic mind of the South. Matti Bonner had been his guide to the South, Maisie his route to the Queen. And Matti was very curious about Ian Paisley. Ian Paisley is very dear to the Catholic mind – he is the most successful Protestant of them all. He had his own religion, and one day he’d have his own political party. The two men, Jonathan and Matti, would sit in the back kitchen over mugs of tea talking about British royalty and the South of Ireland.

And when silence descended on them, Matti Bonner would talk to Reilly the dog. Then he’d check the back fields when Jonathan Adams was ready to leave.

“It’s all right, Sergeant,” Matti would say, “you can go.”

One winter, when Maisie was suffering from weak lungs, Matti gave the Sergeant a blessed piece of felt to spread over his wife’s chest. And to the amazement of the Presbyterian household it brought relief to Maisie. He carried up goat’s milk every second day, for goat’s milk, he claimed, was alive with wild herbs that would cure all ailments of the lung. In return Jonathan Adams took Matti cauliflowers, peas and spring onions. He brought him homemade jam, Maisie’s pear wine and always, at Christmas, a Guinness cake. Matti learned to love Maisie’s cooking.

“I’ll say this for you,” Matti would say, “the Northern Protestant knows how to ate. The Prod keeps a good table.” It was true. While Matti hurled the heels of his loaves to his dog, or let them go blue with mould, in the Adams house they became bread pudding laced with raisins.

Any labouring job at the home of the Adamses was sure to go to Matti Bonner.

“It must be your conscience,” Matti would joke.