He heard a car slow, change gear, turn the corner, enter the end of the lane. He looked at his watch, a newfangled digital Casio which showed the date as well as the time. It was too early for Pierre. He cupped his ear towards the distant murmur. He used to know the make of every car from the sound the engine made. But this car. He listened hard. It was one of those cheap imported jobs, from Italy or Japan. Ran on wound-up rubber bands, sniggered. Pierre had a Land Rover, a sturdy diesel number that brayed like a deer in rut. Nor was it the inspector’s car. That was a Ford. He didn’t want the inspector out, not today. Besides, it was a Sunday. No inspector worked Sundays.

The cry of a curlew broke the quiet. Joe dropped the halter, lifted his binoculars, trained them to the cliff edge, left, right, up, down. Crou-eee, crou-eee, the bird was howling like a pup. Curlews were common enough round here, but he still thrilled to see them. There she was. Silhouetted, and the sky full of tubby clouds with blown-out cheeks. Fair weather. Some clouds were angels, high in the icy heavens, willowy and graceful, others puckered like wet skin. But cumulus, they were his friends, even when they blocked the sun and shrouded the blue. They were no threat.

He followed the bird as it glided across the sky. Up there were thermals that wings caught and floated on. Did they swim in the air for joy, for the pleasure of the wind blowing through the dappled feathers, stroking the skin? The curlew’s long, curved beak and its outstretched legs made a crescent in the sky, but on land its beak looked too long for its head. Like Pinocchio’s nose. Was a curlew a liar too?

Joe had watched the birds for as long as he could remember. Awake with the light, he’d gazed through the attic window from the bed he shared as a child with his brothers and sisters until the girls got too old. They’d shove him close to the glass so he caught the draughts, but it was worth it. He had a ringside seat of the Owenmore estuary as the gannets and the petrels dipped and circled, their cries like the calls of old friends. He knew who was out there and why. He cherished those dawns.

‘Just look at you,’ little Bridey, the sister nearest to him, said. ‘No bigger than a sparrow yourself. Would you want to fly away with them?’

Yes, he wanted to say. Yes. Their daidí was a hard man. Never gave a thought for Joe, unless there was a fist behind it.