‘It seems much too far away, but it is the best I can do.’

‘Well, then.’

‘I missed you last night.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Walked round Central Park banging my head against trees.’

‘I hope you’ve bruises to show for it.’

‘All over. Say my name.’

‘James.’

‘I like that. I love your brogue.’

‘I don’t have a brogue.’

‘Well, whatever you call it. Say it again.’

‘James.’

‘And.’

‘Cavan.’ I gave it the full Cavan blás. ‘Caaavan,’ I said.

‘Cool,’ he said.

We both laughed again.

Here I am being agreeable before cockcrow, I thought to myself.

Then his laughter stopped. ‘Yes, well, thank you,’ he said formally. ‘If tomorrow suits you, that’s fine with me. Goodbye.’

He hung up.

Shit, I said to myself and tried to go to sleep again.

Counted sheep.

Recited verse.

Why can’t I teach Creative Writing in Minnesota?

Or better still, be poet in residence at Santa Fe?

Where golden-limbed girls with a full quota

Of perfect teeth lionise me, feed me, lead me astray.

A professorship, perhaps, visiting in Ann Arbor?

(Nothing too strenuous, the occasional social call)

What postcards I can write, what ambitions harbour:

Hawaii in the springtime, Harvard in the fall.

Good old R. McGough again, but I didn’t feel like laughing.

I sat up, punched my pillows and read a book. Gradually, pale light began to slice in through my window, radios were switched on here and there, windows were thrown open and footsteps sounded in the apartment over my head.

People in New York get up too early, I thought.

‘Supposing,’ Lar stuck his head round her bedroom door. She was still in her dressing-gown, hunched forward staring at the screen of her computer. She didn’t seem to hear him.

‘Supposing,’ he repeated, ‘we took the car and drove somewhere, let Pansy have a really good run. Saw some landscape. It’s not raining. I’d like to see some landscape.’ There was no reaction from the figure, just her fingers clicking on the keyboard.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘No, no, no. Don’t go. Just wait till …’ she clicked away furiously’… I finish this sentence.’ She turned around and smiled at him. ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’

‘Sure.’ He went back to the kitchen and put on the kettle.

‘Odd bird,’ he said to Pansy. She wagged her tail. He was embraced by the homeliness of the place, the murmuring kettle, the smell of food, the dog stretched by the Aga, her tail thumping on the floor. A clock on the wall ticked and water dripped from the cold tap. I must mend that for her, he thought. Cups, plates, jugs and bowls jumbled together on shelves, and jars filled with jam and fruit and pickled vegetables – pink, red, orange and yellow lined the walls. Odd bird.

I never wanted to leave my home, I never wanted to go further than down the road, perhaps around two loughs to the brown and grey mountains of Donegal.