Someone knocks on the door a few times, and he looks towards the ash seedling. It has definitely grown a little since he last looked at it, and maybe it is too pretty a thing to cut down. It is so funny the things you notice when you are drunk, he thinks, like how the hairs move ever so slightly on the backs of his arms, how the crows were silent this morning; you can even see a tree growing upwards if you concentrate hard enough. He leans against the wall, and lets his weight go so he collapses off his stool, and he begins crawling towards the scythe, but all his movements seem so slow and the ground is too close to his nose.

‘A moment,’ he calls to the person who is knocking, ‘just a moment.’

When he reaches the scythe, he pulls it down from where he is sitting on the floor. He hears his babies crying, and looks around, but his vision is gone again and nausea is rising in his throat, making it difficult to breathe. The blade is not covered in blood. He runs his fingers against it, feeling nothing; perhaps he imagined it all, but what is sad is that it makes no difference any more.

Even if they are here I am alone; that is the summation of every life. There is nothing behind this alcohol inside me; nothing left of me. Once it evaporates I will disappear. He finds this funny; laughs again, rocking back and forth, the scythe lying ready across his lap.

‘Come in,’ he shouts to whoever is knocking at the door. ‘Come in while I still have something left to give you.’

Raghnailt is resisting …

Raghnailt is resisting the urge to run her fingers through her daughter-in-law’s hair; she would not wake her. Alannah, a Gael and a very little person, seems peaceful, her broad face unguarded and delicate in sleep. Raghnailt gets pleasure enough from just looking at her. Having given birth to four stillborn daughters, and having destroyed her own life by allowing herself to feel responsible for each one of their deaths, Raghnailt has always craved the presence and love of a younger woman; and two years ago, at the age of fifty, she finally received it. Alannah’s marriage into the family may not have had the intended effect upon Colca, and it has surely been a catastrophe for Alannah, but it has brought love into Raghnailt’s life, and that long after she had given up any hope of it.

Mary, the intruder amongst them, is also asleep once more, still holding her jug of cider between her arms. She looks like a child, and Raghnailt hates to see her there. She always faces away from her.

‘It is hot already,’ Alannah says, later, from the bed. ‘Usually, the crows awaken me when the morning is up. They are the earliest risers, but there were no crows at all this morning.’