Silas watched Alec get up and walk away, thinking how familiar he seemed, the way he held his body, like a boxer, putting more weight on one foot than on the other. No, it did not make him look unbalanced, it made him look just right, somehow.

He turned to the waitress and ordered another whisky.

‘Plenty of ice, no water.’

A mass was said for Jackson and Agnes Oliphant in Newclare's Church of St Francis of Assisi. Blessings on their forty-second anniversary. A feat that all married couples should try to emulate. Live together for a lifetime, or its equivalent in life expectancy. The priest was young, filled with enlightened jargon. He spoke about the AIDS plague, people dying all around him, how only God had the right to judge, the need for compassion. Where are all the good old sermonizers, the fire-and-brimstone preachers who asked God to fry your arse at the smallest transgression? Archbishop Tutu and his kind are responsible for this: the namby-pambying of God's ferocious legions.

Silas was glad to get out into the open air. Light flowed from the Church into the darkness, as feeble as ever and unable to defeat the woven-together shadows of a place like Newclare. Even this new breed of priest could not illuminate the human condition (whatever that was).

The place stretched before him, much smaller than he remembered.

How time seduces the memory, makes the past seem grander than it could ever have been. This was where he had grown up, where he had been shaped, where his world-view had been formed. How miserable it seemed now.

An arm was linked into his; Lydia, generous in her observation of his misery, led him away to their car. They swept off in convoy to Alec and Gracie's home for supper and drinks. In the car, he asked Lydia when last she had seen Michael.

‘A week ago, the night he brought that girl home.’

‘You know who she is?’

‘Her name is Vinu. A refugee of sorts.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don't think he slept with her, there was a bed on the floor the next morning. He's giving her sanctuary from something.’

‘You went into his room?’

‘Had to. Heard her crying. Sounded like she had been crying all night. I thought that Mikey had done something…’

‘God.’

‘Yes, that's what I thought. Rape, coercion. A mother's worst fears. But she was weeping about something else. Thanked us for our tolerance, said that Mikey was so generous, so wise. So were we!’

‘Does that mean she's still there?’

‘No, Silas. Don't you know what goes on in your own house?’

They pulled up outside Gracie and Alec's township mansion, brick and mortar testing the frontiers of their surroundings. This is how the grand little towns in Spain and Italy are built, with their front doors opening onto the street.

‘You're never going to call him “Michael”, are you?’ Silas said.