Tom couldn’t bring himself to approach the children, but it didn’t matter because they had thought of playing hide-and-seek themselves. In the left-hand scullery Mrs Haverty and his mother washed the dishes. The ferryman had arrived in the kitchen, and Mr O’Hagan was there, and Haverty. There were glasses on the table, and a bottle that hadn’t been opened yet.

When the lunch came to an end Tom was allowed to help Patty to carry the food that remained in from the lawn. Fragments of conversation continued to reach him, several of the people talking about Mrs Moledy counting her money. In the kitchen his mother and Mrs Haverty said it was shocking, and Patty said it was shocking also. A child had spilt a glass of lemonade on the tablecloth, Patty said, and the child’s mother had made a fuss, but no one had upbraided Mrs Moledy, and nobody woke her up when she kept falling asleep. She’d applauded loudly when the wedding-cake was cut, but everyone had been very polite about it.

‘I shouldn’t have let her sit there in the first place,’ Tom’s mother said, but a few minutes later the bride arrived in the kitchen and the episode appeared to be forgotten. Mr Balt arrived in the kitchen also, standing by the door at first, but then coming further in and proceeding to open the bottle on the table.

‘Are there glasses?’ he said.

The ferryman and Mr O’Hagan and Haverty were on their feet, their cigarettes cupped in hands held behind their backs. There were glasses for everyone, Patty included, but Tom wasn’t noticed until slices of the wedding-cake were passed round and Mrs Haverty pushed him forward.

‘Good health to you both.’ The ferryman took the lead, raising his glass in the air, higher than anyone in the garden had raised a glass. ‘Good luck and good health,’ the ferryman said. The others raised their glasses also, and Tom looked from the glasses to the married couple, who had linked arms with one another. It didn’t occur to him that Mr Balt was too old for her, although he could see he was the older of the two. It wasn’t until some years later that he noticed the oddity of it.

Motoring westward in Finnamore’s motor-car, the married couple did not speak much. Villana endeavoured to sleep, the late afternoon sun warm on her face. Finnamore drove steadily, at thirty-five miles an hour, engrossed in his thoughts. He had often heard of John James’s friendship with the woman from the boarding-house, but as a matter of legal principle had always denied its truth. The counting of the banknotes, the rubber-band temporarily between the woman’s lips: for a long time, Finnamore speculated, that image would haunt his consciousness.

‘A pity.’

‘Oh, none of it matters.’