‘Hold on there.’

The gravediggers lowered a ladder and Joe heaved himself up and stepped out and onto the boggy ground, little Bridey standing there wiping an eye with her grubby handkerchief.

‘Only Jesus himself climbs out of a grave,’ Father Murphy said afterwards in the sacristy, handing him a glass of Jameson. ‘Drink up. It’ll do you the power of good.’

Only Joe didn’t go back to the house, not after that. O’Sullivan’s was open, half a dozen men with crumpled tweed jackets and black ties staring into their glasses.

The publican looked up. ‘What’ll it be, Father?’

‘A whiskey,’ Joe said. ‘A large one.’ He waited while the publican poured.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he said, handing it to Joe. ‘On the house.’

Joe stood as waves of hot and cold rolled up and down his body, corrugating his flesh, spinning his head. He finished the whiskey in one easy gulp.

Sitting on his father’s coffin, eye to eye with marbled roots and raw-red worms, earwigs and beetles, as the rain washed down from above and the sludge pushed up from below, he had seen, as clear as daylight, that there was no difference between man and animal. No immortal soul. No life hereafter. When you died, that was it. Buried deep and feasted on by maggots who were gobbled up by pheasants who were shot down by hunters and served up as game in his father’s butcher’s shop.

His teeth chattered and the hairs at the back of his neck stood proud. He nodded to the publican who filled his glass again. Joe walked over to a small table in the corner, lifted the chair, turned it so he faced the wall and sat, the liquid forming rainbows in the glass as it swirled and settled. He stared into the amber void, conjuring again the cadavers of his war, the skeletal frames he’d called his friends, the wanton, casual cruelty of it all. God had turned a blind eye to all of that. And no one here gave a damn.

He swallowed the whiskey, waved to O’Sullivan for a refill. Nothing scared him now. Not the Church, and all its holy fathers. Mortal sin and venial sin, guardian angels and purgatory. Lies. All of it.

‘There, Father,’ O’Sullivan said, placing the bottle on the table. ‘Take it easy.’