Tom’s black hair is brushed back now, touched here and there with grey; his childhood fringe has gone. The face that was round in childhood and once resembled his mother’s is irregular, its skin toughened from exposure to the weather. But his eyes have retained the innocence that was there in the past, contributing to the youthfulness that persists in his agility as he goes about his work in the fields.

‘Well, that’s it,’ the undertaker remarks, with professional finality.

‘Thanks for coming over.’

Together they leave the room, joined on the landing by Tom’s black terrier. They descend the curving staircase, where family portraits still hang. The corpse will remain in the bedroom until an hour before the funeral, since that has always been the family way.

‘That’s a bitter wind,’ the undertaker conversationally observes as they pass through the hall-door and stand for a moment on the steps.

‘She hated cold,’ Tom recalls. ‘She often said it.’

Later, other people learn of the death of the Rollestons’ poor relation, and note from the newspaper obituary the date and the time of the funeral. In Unionhall the sons of the Camiers who attended Villana Rolleston’s wedding display no interest in the death. In Buttevant a granddaughter of Lady Rossboyne tries to remember who Sarah Pollexfen was but cannot. In England the children of Sarah Pollexfen’s brother telephone each other to say that the aunt they have never met has apparently died in the house they’d always heard so much about, on an island off the coast of Co. Cork, i am too old for funerals now,’ Villiers Hadnett says in the house he inherited near Athlone. ‘Treacherous things, funerals.’ And in Unionhall and Buttevant and England no plans are made to attend the funeral, either.

In the kitchen, during the days that pass, the perusal of the diaries continues: a solemn task, since last wishes come into it. And the revelations that were not allowed in a lifetime continue also, though often the ground is familiar.

Carriglas, January 18th, 1938. We have painted the conservatory. John James brought back putty and Villana and I pressed it in with kitchen knives. I never thought we could do it, but Villana said of course we could.

Carriglas, March 9th, 1947. A portrait on the staircase wall fell in the night, splinters of glass everywhere. Both frame and canvas are damaged and John James says there is no one in the vicinity who could properly restore them. So we have taken the picture to one of the visitors’ rooms, leaning it against the wall in the long cupboard.

Carriglas, June 14th, 1953. For two days Lionel and Haverty and Tom have been trying to repair the water-ram and in the meanwhile we have had no water in the house. But this evening it began to trickle again.