Kneeling at the eight o’clock mass, back to the congregation, Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, Joe’d fancied he’d seen the blood drip from the precious wounds of the Christ hanging above the altar at St Brendan’s. Father Murphy smiled when Joe told him in the sacristy afterwards, said he was blessed now and gave him a scapular to wear at all times. Maybe, Joe thought, he had a calling, though in his heart, if he was honest, he thought the church a morbid place with as much blood and gore as his father’s butcher’s shop or his mother’s undertaking business.

‘Must be lonely,’ Pierre went on, ‘no wife, no kiddies.’

‘Are you married, Pierre?’ Joe said.

‘No.’

‘Are you lonely?’

‘I’m busy.’

‘That’s not the same,’ Joe said.

‘Is that why you do this, then?’

‘What?’

‘With the boys. Boxing,’ Pierre said.

Joe hesitated. The boys gave him company, that was right enough.

‘I like boxing,’ he said. ‘Birds, too.’

Pierre laughed, wheezed, coughed, stubbed out his cigarette on the top of the stove.

‘I mean,’ he said. ‘Birds and boxing. Not things you usually put together. And not in a priest.’

Joe hadn’t put them together, not till Pierre said it. But they’d walked either side of him, he realised now, and had done for the longest time. They’d been his crutches. He took them for granted, like his guardian angels.

‘Maybe not,’ Joe said, added. ‘But they saved my soul, believe me.’

Pierre raised an eyebrow and Joe wished he’d never opened his mouth. The words had slipped out, away from him, just like that. He thought they were wedged more tightly.

‘Saved your soul?’ Pierre emphasised the words. ‘That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it? How so?’

‘Well, now,’ Joe said, ‘that’s my secret.’ Between me and my confessor, he wanted to say, though he’d never confessed, not to a priest, not to anyone. He couldn’t tell Pierre. No. This was not a thing you told to any man. Joe wasn’t sure he had the words anyhow. It was never talked about.

‘Whoa,’ Pierre said. ‘A priest with a secret. Now, there’s one for the books.’

Joe wanted to yank back those words too. It made it all worse. He wanted Pierre to forget it, let the subject drop. He’d spoken too much and he didn’t know why.

‘Enough,’ Joe said. He spoke with force, so Pierre looked startled and hurt. Joe picked up a glove from the floor, paired it with another. ‘I didn’t mean to shout. I don’t know why I did.’ He breathed hard. ‘I’m just tired, Pierre. Tired of this war.’

‘We all are, Father,’ Pierre said, his voice subdued. ‘Amen to that.’

‘You may be right,’ Joe said, as he ushered Pierre out of the door, and delved in his pocket for the keys. ‘Perhaps I am lonely.’