She called over to the girl behind the counter, her voice slightly imperious. The girl nodded.

‘How splendid to have bumped into you like this. I have been thinking about you. I am a very inquisitive old lady – a nosy-parker, I think Clara would call me. She has been very ill, you know. She needs looking after.’

‘Yes. She told me.’

‘I’m sure she didn’t tell you quite how ill. She hasn’t told me either. She’s either protecting her privacy or my anxiety, perhaps a bit of both. Thank you, Maire. Just what we need.’ She smiled at the girl who had placed two foaming cups on the table. ‘My afternoon fix! Cappuccino and gossip, every afternoon at four-thirty. Maire knows everything that goes on in this village.’ She took a sip from her coffee and then licked the foam from her lips with her neat pink tongue. ‘Now tell me about yourself. You didn’t get much chance last night.’

‘Clara’s being very kind to me.’

‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Her voice was impatient. ‘Clara’s very kind to a lot of people, but not always to herself. I don’t need to know about Clara. I need to know about you.’

Silence lay between them. She leant across the table and poked his arm with a finger.

‘There isn’t much to know.’

‘Why did she say that thing about you being sick in the head?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s her assessment of me. I am a bit depressed. That’s all.’

‘Where did you meet?’

‘On Killiney Hill. I was walking my dog and I saw her. I … ah … thought that she was a bit near the edge and it gave me a sort of queer feeling, so I asked her to take care.’

Mrs Barry nodded.

‘Anyway, she offered me a bed for a couple of days because she thought I was depressed and the hotel wasn’t quite the right place. There’s no more to it than that, just in case you were …’

She shook her head.

‘My wife died two years ago and I just had to get away. And our baby. Little …’ he paused.

She placed her cool hand over his on the table and let it stay there.

‘Moya. She was called after my wife’s mother. Things have just been building up, inside my head. Filling my head. I couldn’t stick it another moment.’

‘What happened them?’

He looked at her for a long time, wondering what to say. She kept her hand on his.

‘I don’t think I can tell you.’

She sighed.

‘Maybe Clara’s right. Maybe you are sick in the head.’

‘Because I want my privacies? What’s sick about that?’

‘Because you want to trap pain and keep it in your head, feed it and let it grow until there’s no room in there for anything else.’

‘That’s my affair.’