CALLIFER: He was a very clever man. Older and cleverer than I was. He took everything I told you and made fun of it. He made me a laughing stock before you. I had taught you about the Virgin birth and he cured you with physiology.

JAMES: Was that why I tried to kill myself?

CALLIFER: So you know about that, do you? He was a bit too rough. (A pause.) Fill your glass. We have to get through this bottle by twelve.

JAMES: Why by twelve?

CALLIFER: I have to say Mass in the morning. I abide by the rules. It’s the least I can do.

JAMES: For who?

CALLIFER: For myself. (He gives an unhappy laugh.) I caught you there. You thought you had squeezed out a small drop of faith. But there isn’t one drop.

As James is helping himself Miss Connolly enters. She has an old-fashioned kitchen alarm clock in her hand.

MISS CONNOLLY (harshly): I’ve set the alarm for six. (She sees what they are drinking.) So that’s why you asked for the water. Where had you got that hidden?

JAMES: I brought it.

MISS CONNOLLY: I try so hard to keep him off the drink, and now you are sending him drunk to bed.

JAMES: I’m sorry. I needed the drink more than he did.

MISS CONNOLLY (her harshness gone as she looks at the old man drooping in his chair): You’ll see he goes up to bed soon, won’t you; he has to wake early. He works hard in his way. (She pauses at the door.) Do you know what he called himself just now? A convict. He said he was in prison. I’m the warder, I suppose. He hasn’t any love or gratitude in him for the years he has been looked after.

JAMES: It’s a terrible thing to have nothing in you.

MISS CONNOLLY: And I’d give my life for him. (She goes out.)

CALLIFER (rousing himself): I’ve made her angry again. Where’s the point? I think I’ll go to bed if you’ll help me. What were we talking about when she came in?

JAMES: Have you really forgotten what happened?

CALLIFER: I’ve forgotten nothing. I don’t like to remember, that’s all. It was a terrible day for everybody. I was very angry with your father for the way he treated you. Of course he had reason, but it was a shocking thing for a boy to be brought to hang himself.

JAMES: What happened when you found me? I wasn’t—dead, was I?

CALLIFER: How could you have been dead? Oh, Potter thought so. And so did I, perhaps. I put a dead leaf on your lips and it didn’t move. But they have a word for that. It was a coma. Just a coma. The doctor said so.

JAMES: Tell me what you did.