‘Go on, Tony,’ the priest urged softly.

‘I have sinned,’ he repeated. ‘It’s been a month since my last confession. I’ve offended God by…’

The laundry list failed him now. Spoken unkindly of someone? Watched porn a few times? They seemed infantile somehow.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m, ah, I’m away for the day, tomorrow,’ he managed, his mouth suddenly dry, the walls of the confessional nearer to him than he’d realised, the edge of the kneeling board digging into his knee.

‘Very good,’ O’Brien said, a little quizzically. ‘Do you want to confess before you go?’

‘I was going to… I’m meeting a few friends from way back.’

He could see the silhouette of the priest through the mesh that separated them, his head nodding, bowed as he read from his breviary by the weak light that leaked through the curtains of the box.

‘Very good,’ the priest repeated. ‘I can get someone to cover the funeral on Thursday, if you like.’

‘No, it’s grand,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll be home tomorrow night. I’m on the last crossing back.’

‘Crossing? Are you headed to Scotland?’

Tony cursed silently, then realised the irony of doing so in his current situation.

‘Some old school friends?’ O’Brien guessed.

‘That’s it,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll be here for Thursday.’

‘It’ll do you good,’ O’Brien said, raising his head now. ‘What with everything over the past few months.’

Tony nodded.

‘Do you want to confess anything?’ O’Brien asked.

‘I’ve done… I’ve done things I’m not proud of,’ Tony said. ‘That’s as best I can put it.’

‘Loneliness can do that to a man,’ O’Brien began. ‘We’re social animals; we’re not made to be alone.’

Afterwards, he walked up to his wife’s grave. He’d visited it each day since her death. 283 days. The roses he’d brought for her birthday the previous week were wilted now, the stems soft, the heads hanging heavy, as if in prayer over her grave.

He hunkered at the edge, pulled an early weed from the soil above her, felt a sad satisfaction as he felt the roots tauten and give.

‘I’ll miss you tomorrow, Ann,’ he said. He stood, laid his hand on the cold marble of the headstone. ‘We’re heading back.’ He felt a tightening in his chest at the thought, and he placed his hand on the gravestone for support.

‘Love you, Ann,’ he concluded, once he’d caught his breath, his words barely a murmur. The stone beneath his hand was cold and unyielding and he felt shame at his thoughts, for they were not, he realised, of his wife.

He wondered how Karen had changed. Her hair had been long then, shoulder-length and brown. She’d be fifty-one now, maybe fifty-two. Did she think of him as he thought of her? Did she try to recreate, in her mind’s eye, his touch? His taste and smell? Did she feel, for a moment, the pressure of his head on her chest, his hand on her body? And did she awake at night, Martin’s final cries for his mother still audible in her ears, the smell of his burning clothes clinging to her hair?