He was awakened by the sound of their voices quarrelling below. The impotent unhappy sound of it stripped him of his warmth. It was inescapable, the sound of it, like the stinging smell of smoke that lay night and day around the city.

The girl was sitting on the wall again the next afternoon. The sun was shining, but it didn’t appear to have any effect on the temperature. Tired dust rose from the streets and lay again on the grass and trees.

‘Hallo, Joe Logan.’ She smiled as he approached.

‘Hallo.’

He had been intending to go straight home, but he paused.

‘Are you sitting today? It’s a better day for sitting than yesterday.’

She patted the wall beside her with a hand.

He must have looked dubious, because she grinned.

‘I won’t eat you.’

What did she think he was anyway, a mere kid?

‘Or abduct you. Or … anything.’

A kid.

‘My name’s Kathleen.’

She folded her hands neatly on her knee and began to recite.

‘Kathleen Doherty is my name,

Ireland is my nation.

Derry, referred to by some as Londonderry, is my dwelling place.

And heaven, my destination.’

‘Expectation,’ he corrected her, and put his schoolbag on the wall beside hers.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘It’s as well to know where you’re going. It gives you a feeling of security.’

‘No one ever knows that they’re going to heaven till they get there.’

She looked vaguely across at the Cathedral with a slight smile on her face.

‘So they tell you anyway,’ he insisted. ‘They should know.’

He sat down on the wall.

‘Shouldn’t they?’

She spread her two hands out towards him. They were still red-gloved, with dark winding patterns round each finger.

‘How can they know? How can anyone know? Do you really think that God whispers some secret in their ears. Their ears only? Baa baa black sheep, that’s all they say to us.’

He was alarmed for a moment, then she laughed, suddenly and vigorously.

‘Anyway,’ she said, when she had finished laughing. ‘It’s a daft sort of way to start a conversation.’

He agreed in his head.

‘There’s a lot of Dohertys around.’

‘There are.’

‘My Mammy’s name was Doherty.’

‘Oh.’

‘Perhaps we’re cousins.’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

She began the eternal search for her cigarettes. She didn’t seem to have any. She pulled off her gloves impatiently as if they were to blame and searched again.

‘Oh damn.’

‘What?’

‘Out of poison.’

‘Poison? Oh yes …’

‘I’m sure I had a full packet. I’m coming slowly to the conclusion, Joe, that there’s a cigarette rustler in the staff room. Or else I’m smoking in my sleep.’

‘Are you a teacher?’

‘Mmmm.’

‘What do you teach?’ He couldn’t somehow see her coming to grips with the equilateral triangle.

‘English … at least that’s what I’m supposed to teach. In fact I find myself spouting out whatever happens to be in my mind that day. Do you know what is a past participle?’