I think to bring out the bins because it occurs to me that it’s bin day tomorrow but I have time enough to do that later and right now I want to keep this conversation going and there is nothing I enjoy more than a debate. I stand behind Jenny as she works and I massage her shoulders and I ask her what’s for dinner. And I ask her if she’s really looking forward to this drink business with Jerome.

There’s a silence as I pick up a canvas that’s covered with an image of scattered rocks and the sea. It reminds me of Strindberg’s painting Night of Jealousy that I’d spotted in one of Jenny’s art books with its energy and its violence. I use my forefinger. When Jenny isn’t paying attention I spit a fairly significant amount of saliva on to the canvas and I rub my finger into the depths of the charcoal and the pencil marks.

It looks like a dog’s dinner.

I resolve to go upstairs and take a shit. My bowels have been acting up for the last number of days and I might be able to use the process of defecation to distract my mind from focusing too much on Jerome Fagan. I study the tiles above the bath. They weren’t my choice and it certainly wasn’t my choice to adhere them as I have done. I remember now how I forgot to wash the excess grout off and how it stuck in places where it shouldn’t have. I look at my work noting my skill level. It’s not that terrible. I am sure that many other men have failed miserably to grout successfully. As I am drying my hands I have a longing to get one of Jenny’s art tools and scrape off the vile flocked wallpaper that Jenny insisted on sticking on with thick gooey paste.

Her feature wall.

32. Her Father

February 1997

It felt so wrong being there, meeting him – having already effectively stolen his daughter. I figured that if he had a problem with it, I would tell him that I was protecting Jenny from Jerome.

Over dinner – which we had brought with us – we talked about his life with Jenny’s mother. I hadn’t expected that and I felt quite uncomfortable, as though he was unburdening himself. It was too much. He asked me about Paris, what I had hoped to achieve by bringing Jenny there. I said that it was just a notion I’d had. I couldn’t understand why he was particularly bothered. I didn’t believe that he overly worried about Jenny and yet I found myself steering clear of offering any information relating to where we had stayed. I didn’t want to discuss our sleeping arrangements with him.