With a sheet wrapped around him, he sat on a kitchen chair, watching Paladin, while Peter Kavanagh snip-snapped at his hair, careful not to block his view. The little living room of the cottage was crowded; Gabriel and the smaller children sat on the floor, absolutely still, their hands clasped around their shins, their faces intent. The sound was turned up full, drowning out the occasional banging on the wall (old Kavanagh lay within, staring at the ceiling in the half-dark and struggling to recall, so as to be word-perfect, a phrase of some old Gaelic song). Peter’s wife worked away quietly in the background, setting out Peter’s dinner on the table. She glanced occasionally at the snipping scissors, smiling, yet absorbed in what she was doing.

As Paladin and his men galloped into a draw, unaware of the ambush laid for them, Father Conroy’s hands twitched under the sheet. “Steady, Father, steady!” whispered the barber, and he turned to wink at his wife, as Father Conroy reined himself in.

When the program was over, she began to bundle the children toward bed. Yawning, Peter turned away from the news toward where his dinner steamed on the table. He took a glance at his handiwork. “D’ye know what they say, Father? They say that you have the best-cropped head in the parish.”

“Thanks to Paladin.”

Peter laughed and waved to the other chair. “Sit in, Father, let ye sit in and have a bite to eat.”

“No, no!” Father Conroy was adamant. He did not eat in road workers’ cottages. A cup of tea, perhaps, he might take, and a scone or a slice of bread, but never a meal. It was too hard-won, he knew, and someone would have to go short, probably the woman of the house, who was always the last to fill her plate. “Sure, I have it all waiting for me above.”

“What is it tonight, Father?”

“Roast duck, potatoes sauté, peas, applesauce – I’m a great man for the trimmings.”

“Yes, Father” – the man was still smiling – “but won’t you...” Father Conroy rose to go. The woman had returned, closing the bedroom door on the murmur of the children’s voices. “The old man’s very restless tonight, Father,” she said.

“Lost another line of a song, I suppose?”

“You wouldn’t know, the way he’s wandering, you wouldn’t know what’s fretting him. ’Tis all mixed up with Peter’s mother. God rest her, they were always very close.” She moved to her place behind her husband, ready to refill his plate. “You ought to get the telly, Father,” she said. “We were just saying what a comfort it would be for you.”

Father Conroy glanced quickly from her to her husband and ran his hand defensively over his scalp. Was it a hint that he was coming too often? But the two faces looked back at him, innocent of any stratagem.