Paddy was drunk; not his usual boisterous drunk but a sullen, melancholic mood. He staggered out of The Bull at twenty past ten. He would have stayed longer except he’d run out of money and his friends, on whom he had spent over a pound, were now preparing to leave as well. Paddy stumbled home.

The long walk, instead of sobering him up, only made him more peevish with every freezing step he took. In his mind he conjured up all the wrongs done to him by his wife. First and foremost in his mind was the fact she’d have no sexual relations with him. He’d get the priest round to talk to her about that. Then there was the fact that she doled out the money to him. He knew she had a good wad stashed away and, on the rare occasions that he was alone in the house, had searched for it fruitlessly. Then there was her attitude with the girls. By Christ, they were grown up now, except for Rosalee who would never grow up.

He felt his eyes mist up at the thought of her. In his drunken mind, Rosalee was the fault of his wife as well. He knew she’d tried to get rid of her, he knew everything about the bitch he lived with. Then the naked white body of his infant son came into his thoughts. It was the night Eileen left to work for Mr Dumas, and somehow, in his drink-fuddled mind, he decided that Molly had got rid of his son as well. The thought induced a rage so violent he felt he could choke on it. A man was judged by his sons. Splitarses - as girls were referred to - were a slur on a man’s manhood. They were no good for anything except the begetting of more sons.

As he passed by the empty streets he thought of all the setbacks he’d experienced in his life: never enough money, never anywhere decent to live. And somehow, all the blame was laid at Molly’s door.