‘Try for a job there. You know, in the station, shovelling the coal, and cleaning off after in the ould river of hot water.’

‘Oh, Janey,’ she says, ‘with the soap in the walls.’

‘Yeh,’ I says.

‘Heh, heh, heh,’ she says, you know, laughing. ‘Well, no, he wants to go on the buildins.’

‘To fucking England?’ I says.

‘No, Joe. Dublin. The Financial Services Centre. The docklands and all.’

‘The what?’ I says.

‘The docklands,’ she says.

‘Oh,’ says I. ‘Like your da before him.’

‘Yeh,’ she says, ‘like the da, only not working the ships. Buildin’ the new offices and all.’

It was then I knew she still loved me. Not straight away knew it.

But it was something about me saying about the power station and her mentioning the soap, and the little laugh. Yeh, yeh, it was the little laugh that gave her away.

And the pride welled up in me. Pure pride. Like sugar it was.

‘Well,’ says I, not letting on, and I never would let on, ‘I haven’t long for this world anyhow, Janet,’ I says. ‘No loss, says you.’

We were swimming then, in the sunshine, it was like we were swimming in the cold water of Dublin Bay, just her and me, when we were young, at the Shelly Banks, and everything washed away.

‘Well, everyone is a loss to the world when they die,’ she says.

‘That’s right, I suppose,’ I says. ‘That’s right,’ I says.

She touches his hand. Her wedding ring must be visible to him. He doesn’t dare move.

The happiest man in Dublin – (Closes his eyes.) The happiest.

Janet   (looking out) Ya see?

They’re in the light there a few moments together, and then no light.

About the Author

Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His novels and plays have won, among other awards, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize, the Costa Book of the Year award, the Irish Book Awards Best Novel, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He also had two consecutive novels, A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), shortlisted for the MAN Booker Prize.  He lives in Wicklow with his wife and three children.

By the Same Author

fiction

THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY

ANNIE DUNNE

A LONG LONG WAY

THE SECRET SCRIPTURE

ON CANAAN’S SIDE

plays

BOSS GRADY’S BOYS

PRAYERS OF SHERKIN

WHITE WOMAN STREET

THE ONLY TRUE HISTORY OF LIZZIE FINN

THE STEWARD OF CHRISTENDOM

OUR LADY OF SLIGO

HINTERLAND

FRED AND JANE

WHISTLING PSYCHE

THE PRIDE OF PARNELL STREET

DALLAS SWEETMAN

TALES OF BALLYCUMBER

ANDERSEN’S ENGLISH

poetry

THE WATER-COLOURIST

FANNY HAWKE GOES TO THE MAINLAND FOREVER

Copyright

First published in 2007
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
Revised reprint 2011
This ebook edition first published in 2014

Cover photograph by Pat Redmond