*

But it was Bill who found the encounter rewarding, as he did everything relating to Marie. He stationed himself behind her, one hand on the back of her chair, like a well-groomed watchdog, everything about him suggesting intelligent interest and a complete lack of understanding.

But why? Marie did not look as if she needed a watchdog. She did not face Father Conroy so much as confront him. Her voice was even clearer than it had seemed on the phone, no Irish hesitancies left in it. She was sure of the facts she had chosen to live with, and so far, Father Conroy had not established his claim to be one of them.

How, he wondered, had she so emphatically put it out of mind, Frank and his little notebook, all that miserable past? Damn it all, why should it still grieve him, who had lost so much less? How could they sit there, explaining to him about Eastbourne and why they had decided to come south, as if it were the only big decision of their lives?

Seated in an old armchair, a buttress of comfort, he looked around him as if the answer were somewhere in the room. The mantelpiece and occasional tables were crowded with knickknacks and photographs – a small faded one of Owen, lost among the studio portraits of stiffly smiling children, of grave young men in uniform and academic robes. Could the Conroys have counted for so little? Even when the talk began to range back over the past, it was always the post-Conroy period they talked about. The watchdog, he felt, was no longer necessary. And he was wasting not only their time, but his own.

Footsteps sounded briskly in the hall. “Ian!” said Marie, and shifted her bulk around, beaming herself on the door. Father Conroy looked up in renewed hope.

He was a Conroy – that could never be denied – a Conroy to the life. He had the features, blended, made smooth as they had not been for Owen, for any of them, least of all for Jimmy Donovan. His body was finer – long and slim, with good bones set off by the sweater and close-fitting jeans. He carried a tennis bag, which he shifted adroitly from right hand to left as he came forward to shake hands. While his uncle was being explained to him, he swung the bag gently against his thigh and looked polite.

A cool card, thought Father Conroy; let’s try him with shock tactics. “I remember seeing you bathed once, young man.”

There was no smile, just a mildly incredulous look.

“In a tin bath, on the kitchen floor,” Father Conroy went on.

“You didn’t, Father,” said Marie. “That was Paul you saw.”

Blast! The young fellow gave him a cold look, as if to say, who’s this head case, anyway? Where did one go from here? And then Father Conroy saw that Marie had flushed and was pursing her lips. So there were some tender spots in those hidden years that might be probed! That gave him some encouragement, when she got up and went into the kitchen to get lunch.