Bimbo remained on his feet. He paced around the lounge, brooded at the burgundy carpet with its pattern of ­custard-­coloured spades like the spades on playing cards, his hands dangling at his sides, limp as strangled game. He was antsy now because of the presence of Denise McIlenden. He could not remove her from his peripheral vision, nor did he want to. Her skin was an improbably deep and even brown and she was in jeans and heels and she smelled absolutely unreal. She was one of them ones who was already beautiful but trowelled on the cosmetics anyway and while there was a certain type of man who claimed he preferred ­natural-­looking women Bimbo did not see how you could mind either way. The Alps were not men comfortably acquainted with the carnal, but they could become as fissured and rent with yearning as anyone.

Bimbo had done three sides of the room and was coming up past Moira and her wheezing daddy.

‘What’s it at?’ Moira asked.

‘What’s what at?’

‘The peacock. The pheasant. What’s it at?’

‘Oh now, just existing,’ Bimbo said.

‘Is that so,’ she said. Moira had a big nose, scraggly hair, a perpetually pursed mouth. She was inclined to taciturn­ity anyways but the dark glasses made her expressions completely unreadable. Bimbo suspected she played up the photophobia in order to maintain precisely this effect. There was always a hint of mocking in her voice and Bimbo had no time for her, really: she reminded him of the rock and roll singer Bob Dylan and he had no time for Bob Dylan and his long-winded, tuneless stylings neither.

‘And how are you, Peader?’ he asked Moira’s father.

Peader Ginty started. His face was bloated and yellow, the corners of his eyes sudsy with discharge. A nose cannula hooked over his ears fed him oxygen out of the tank nestling in his trolleybag. He was diabetic, could barely walk because of his gout, his heart was riddled with stents. He was by this stage of things a big watery bag of imperilled organs, and the only parts of him that still worked, worked because of ongoing medical intervention. Moira was stuck as his carer and if she was even a tiny bit more hospitable in her demeanour Bimbo would have felt sorry for her.

‘Oh, good, now. Not bad now,’ Peader wheezed. His breathing reminded Bimbo of the antiquated range in his granny’s. ‘And yourself, Bimbo?’

‘Nothing worth complaining about.’

‘People who have nothing to complain about lack character,’ Moira said.

‘Oh,’ Bimbo said. ‘Is that true? Peader, do you reckon that’s true?’

‘What?’ Peader said.

‘Go back to sleep,’ Moira said.

‘I’m not sleepy,’ Peader said.

‘Have you taken your pill, Daddy? You have to take your pill.’

‘I do be always taking that pill. I never miss that pill.’

‘Good man,’ Bimbo said. ‘You tell her.’