When I tell Jenny that I will be away for a couple of days with work, for a moment I glimpse in her a happiness that wasn’t there before. I suppose we could do with a break from each other because things aren’t going so well between us since Dean’s party, last month. Jenny has accused me of attacking her in bed after the party. I have told her that quite possibly it was the drink talking and perhaps she should be a bit more careful with the things that she’s saying and in case she’s forgotten, we are husband and wife, after all. I suppose that it might be a good thing for me to get away from the kids for a night or two because the school holidays are in full swing now and the lack of structure in their day is making them go crazy. I blame Jenny. When I am at work she allows them the run of the place during the day. They can watch as much television as they like because she doesn’t seem to have any inclination to entertain them, she is too busy with her art and her chisels and her implements. I have a good mind sometimes to throw the lot into the bin, to destroy them. It doesn’t hurt to conjure up plans, if anything it’s good for the imagination.

The heat of summer is building slowly as it tends to in Ireland and you can feel it on your skin, mainly in the mornings, but it has that peculiar Irish habit of subsiding considerably as the day progresses so you have to take what you can get when you can. The children are often disappointed by the inconsistency in the weather. I tell them that the weather cannot be considered a proper mark of disappointment and further, that the surprises that the weather brings with it can only be a positive thing. There is nothing worse in this life than predictability.

As the days drift nearer to my departure date, Jenny acts like she’s increasingly annoyed, not by my imminent leaving in the sense that she will miss me, but more that she’s irate about the amount of work she will have to do about the place by herself. The dinner on the evening before I leave is fraught with tension. Mikey and Joey are fighting about who shall get the last sausage and to make light of the situation I decide to raffle it.