Still, old Hennessy wasn’t the worst; in a way, Father Conroy enjoyed their exchange of pious nothings, each trying to outdo the other in the art of humbuggery. An hour or so with Watch and Pray would kill the morning nicely. Yet, as he leaned forward to switch on the engine, a tenable lassitude descended on him. Am I not well? he wondered, looking at his fingers on the ignition key, unable to turn it. He disliked illness, so much so that he had to force himself to enter a sickroom, which he did practically every day of his life. An expert in fixing things – a dispute over a boundary fence, a dowry, a job on the council – here was something he could never fix. He got his revenge by never admitting illness in himself. He regarded minor pains as a bluff his body was trying on him, and he showed it that he wasn’t having any. He never had recourse to a doctor in his life. No thanks, he would say, I’d sooner call in a plumber to mend the hall clock (he had a thing about plumbers too; there was one in the parish who never paid his dues). Anyway, illness never bothered the Conroys; they never lingered and became a nuisance, but were struck down in the heat of the day, leaving no doctors’ bills. His father died suddenly at the age of fifty after a foolish show of strength at the fair of Donore. His brother Owen had burst himself on a building site in England at the age of twenty-nine. Father Conroy was sixty-three and had always known that the family monster would get him yet; he didn’t mind, as long as he was given immunity from all the lesser, tiresome illnesses. Fair’s fair, he always said, with a vision of the Conroys like so many Samsons pulling the Temple down on themselves, in their own time.

He turned the key and the engine spurted into life. Had it really come suddenly for his father and for Owen? Or had there been a secret pain, a seeping away of strength? He wanted to know now, urgently, but there was no one he could ask – no one except his mother and Frank, and he couldn’t ask them. God, Conroy, he told himself, you’re a shaky! You get an imaginary kick from an imaginary horse and you wake up thinking you’re dying. Cop yourself on, man! Off you go and do your morning’s work!

Slowly he began to let out the handbrake. And then he thought of Kate, with enormous relief, of his sister, Kate, so near, so solid, so changeless. Christ, I must go talk to Kate.