‘I talk too much. To myself all the time. Inside talking and outside talking. To converse with yourself is a very satisfactory thing to do. To argue with yourself, philosophise, laugh at your own rotten jokes … If you were five or six years older you’d tell me to shut up, so you would.’

‘I like it when you talk.’

‘Thanks, pal.’

The road turned sharply to the right and the hill became steeper. Trees hung across the hedge on the upper side of the road, some of them already with tiny thickenings on the winter twigs that would become buds. Smoke waved from the chimney of a small cottage tucked below the road. The smell of turf-smoke filled the wind. A black and white dog came round the corner of the cottage and inspected them without interest … Away below, the silver fingers of the lough grasped at the fields. The windows of a distant village across the valley glittered in the sun.

‘Chocolate?’

She pulled a bar out of her pocket and handed it to him.

‘Thanks.’

It was a long walk. It took them in fact the best part of an hour to reach the top. The trees and hedges ended and the world unfolded itself below them. The wind pushed and pulled at them from all angles. The last couple of hundred yards to the high stone ring was up a winding track. It seemed as if they might be blown whirling away for ever if they didn’t watch out, keep their feet gripping firmly to the ground. They tucked their heads well down into their shoulders and ran the last few yards to the shelter of the fort.

‘Oooof.’

There was a low dark passage that smelt disagreeably of pee and then they were in the fort.

‘It’s supposed to be two thousand years old,’ said Kathleen.

The walls rose high around them in tiers, each tier joined by stone steps that jutted out from the wall. There was no breath of wind but they could hear it battering outside.

‘Did people live here?’

The circle of grass was like a huge circus ring. Small holes at intervals round the wall led into tunnels.

‘I imagine only in times of danger. They used to rush up here with their cattle and throw stones at the marauders.’

‘True?’

‘More or less. Come on up here.’

She began to climb cautiously up the steps.

‘Just a tick.’

He went over to one of the holes and, bending down, put his head in. There was a passage there all right, a sort of crawling passage. He wondered if he were brave enough to crawl along it a bit. After all, he thought, if it had been there for two thousand years it would be unlikely to fall in on top of him. It was damp and very dark and very uninviting. He wriggled a short way along it, his body completely blocking out the light. There was a smell he didn’t like. A smell that might be of dead things, dead things he might put his hand on at any minute. He backed quickly out into the light again. He wiped his hands carefully on his trousers. His heart was stuttering in his chest.