What have I done? Deliberate destruction. I hated him. Only because … for some nameless reason. Some reason I don’t understand. Father, I have sinned. Who will forgive me now? I have told the truth, but only to destroy. I too am destroyed. So forever is the destroyer destroyed. So …

‘Everything will be all right tomorrow.’

Her voice was so gentle, and now she too would hate him. Worse, despise him.

A road to the right wandered down the hill towards the river. He went with it. Smoke streamed from the high chimneys of the power station on the other bank of the river. A curve of grey and white houses formed a bay, and boats rocked gently on its sheltered water. He sat down on a wall and looked at it all. Beyond the houses the river opened out wide into the lough and then somewhere far away there was the sea. The world. The real world. Perhaps it was all the same. Perhaps everywhere you went people were lost, searching with desperation for something they would never find. Mutilating themselves and each other in their desperation. There was no safety. A bird got up slowly from the field below him, ungainly for a moment and then soaring with a perfection that took away your breath. The song he had heard in her room came into his head.

I see the last black swan

Fly past the sun,

I wish I too were gone

Back home again.

My body’s black and sore.

I need to sleep.

Now hear the heavens roar.

I can’t escape.

Now we have time to kill …

A ship moved across the deep water of the tiny bay. The patterns in the water spread behind it like a peacock’s tail.

Kill the shadows on our skin.

He could go home now. He slithered down from the wall, scraping the back of his right hand against the stone. He just had to go back.

Kill the fire that burns within.

It would only be a temporary measure. Killing time, my friend. Until such time. His behind was wet. Brendan would half-kill him, but then he was going away. Everything would be the way it was before then. Well …

Only a temporary measure. It was the shadows that hid the truth. The shadows … fearful. His legs were stiff with the unaccustomed walking and the dampness soaking through his trousers. She would understand. She would forgive him. She … He was hungry now. Mam would half-kill him for not having gone to school. If he was half-killed by Brendan and half-killed by Mam it didn’t leave much of Joe. Ah well …

She didn’t even ask him where he’d been. She indicated his chair. He sat down. His back ached. He wasn’t cut out for the energetic life.

‘Let there be no more fighting,’ she said, putting his plate down in front of him. ‘Your Daddy is ill with it all. Lying up there moaning and groaning as if his last hour had come.’