‘I’d never tell her anything you told me.’

‘Have you?’

‘I have not. It’s always do this, do that. Why can’t she stay at home and do these things herself?’

‘You know well.’

He knew it was a mistake the moment he had said the words. He picked up the scuttle and rattled a load of anthracite into the stove, hiding the words with the noise and his business. As he put the scuttle down on the floor again he took a sideways glimpse at his father. His eyes were closed but for a glittering thread of blue, and tears spilled down his cheeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ muttered the boy. ‘I meant nothing. I just spoke off the top of my head.’

‘Don’t think that I am unaware. Don’t think I don’t cry in my bed when I think what I have become. I am aware, that’s all I say.’

He wiped at his fretful eyes with the back of his hand.

‘You …’

There was a long silence. Joe stood miserably still. He should rattle the ashes out, but he didn’t like to.

‘You, in your youth, see me for what I am. But. But, let me tell you one thing … young fellow … I am not …’ He emphasised the word with a thump on the table. Then, overcome, somehow, by the physical action, he seemed to lose the drift of what he was saying. Joe touched his books, gathered them into a pile at his end of the table while his father groped through the mists in his mind for the words he wanted.

‘… unaware,’ he said finally with a certain triumph. ‘That’s all I have to say. And let me tell you, when you cast your aspersions at me, when you point your finger …’ His voice trailed away. His hands on the table wrestled with each other. After a moment or two Joe sat down and pulled his maths book towards him. With a little bit of luck …

‘Did you put the kettle on?’

Joe sighed.

‘No.’

‘I could do with a cup of tea.’

Joe brought the kettle out to the scullery and filled it and put it on the stove.

‘I burned myself out. That’s what I did. A burned skeleton, that’s what I am. No sinew left. No gut. No damn gut. I burned out, son. I bet no boy in your class has seen his father cry. Has he? Has he?’

He opened his eyes wide and fixed them on Joe.

‘Has he?’ He almost shouted the words.

‘I don’t know, Dad. Honest, I don’t know. We don’t talk about that sort of thing.’

‘I cry.’ He said it in a very matter of fact voice. The tears on his cheeks were dry now, only grey tracks remained.

‘I have cried for years. There’s been nothing else for me to do. No one understands. No One.’ His battling hands lay still. ‘Only Brendan. He came near to it. Near. He would listen. Sit there and listen, so he would.’