‘He died before I was born. I believe he was a very benign fellow, a classical scholar. My mother liked him. He had a fine baritone voice – she admired that. I can’t sing a note, though I like to pretend I can. I think I may get my desire to be able to sing from him, but lack his talent. Pity really.’

She poured herself some more coffee.

‘I am stupidly addicted to this poison. Go on, tell me more about Caitlin. Where did you live? Just give a few basic bits of information.’

He got up and walked over to the window; tiny leaf buds on a clematis crowded against the glass.

‘You should cut your creeper back,’ he said. ‘Soon you won’t be able to see out.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘I am a total stranger. You can tell me everything or nothing, lies or truth. It doesn’t matter. It’s of no consequence what you say to me.’

‘Man and boy.’

‘Sorry?’

He turned round to face her.

Der Frühling will kommen … the words floated softly into her head.

‘In the same wee town, man and boy. Just looking out over the ocean. Perhaps that’s why I like Killiney Hill.’

Der Frühling meine Freud’.

‘But we had nothing out beyond us, maybe a Scottish island or two and then nothing. That is a wonderful feeling.’

She nodded. Nun mach’ich mich fertig.

‘My father was a bank manager. One long main street. Maybe you don’t know the North. We specialise up there in these long main streets.’

She’d seen them on television – rubble and drifting smoke, gaping windows, people made dispirited by the knowledge of their own uncompromising hatred.

‘We live at one end of the street and the bank is at the other end. Each day he would do that walk, up and back; he still does, just out of habit, morning and afternoon. “Yes, Davey,” people say when they pass him. “How are you doing?” They do the same to me. “Yes, Lar.” That’s the way we greet each other. Maybe you don’t know that.’

She shook her head.

‘Nobody even says hello to you down here. Nobody catches your eye.’

‘Perhaps you haven’t been here long enough for people to get used to your face. Perhaps you don’t smile enough.’

He looked a bit disconcerted.

‘Excuse me using the word, but you do look – well, glum.’

He laughed. He threw his head back and laughed richly.

She watched him and drank some more coffee. He continued to laugh – a bit overdone, she thought, on the back of such a mild comment. He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a Kleenex; he wiped his eyes and then abruptly the laughter stopped.

‘Why did I do that?’ he asked her. ‘What you said about me wasn’t particularly funny.’

‘I suppose you just needed to laugh. Any excuse for a laugh, as they say.’

‘Hysteria?’

‘Something like that.’

He sat down and rubbed at his face with his hand.