He walks the fields, examining his fences. In the crook of his arm, protected by a piece of sacking, he carries a coil of barbed wire. A gate, rotten twelve months ago, collapses when he attempts to move it on its hinges; there are places where the posts must be renewed. The grass may perhaps be better this year than it was last if the ragwort does not increase. Little yellow boy, Sister Teresa Dolores called it, touching with the tip of her cane the chart on the blackboard. Buachallan but.

He pulls a length of wire taut, gripping it with his pliers, then hammers in another staple. The frost which had earlier been white on the grass has gone; his footsteps, to and from the fence, have marked a path. He has always known that he would have the house when Sarah Pollexfen died.

In the kitchen Patty cuts slices of yesterday’s bacon. On the electric stove that has replaced the range a saucepan of potatoes boils. The dresser and the long oak table are as they’d been for as long as she can remember, the same icy draught blowing in from the scullery passage. Since the death, Patty has been quiet, not saying much to Tom. Her knuckles on the panels of Sarah Pollexfen’s door had resounded without response, the cup of tea she carried steaming in the cold air. She had not opened the door when there was no reply to her raised voice, but had gone for Tom instead.

She lays two places at the kitchen table and turns the radio on. Men’s voices argue about farm prices; she does not listen, and in a moment turns it off again. What will Tom do now? It is no secret that Esmeralda Coyne would marry him. Many times after Mass on Sundays, when people stand about and talk, Patty has heard it said that Esmeralda Coyne would marry him and try to turn Carriglas into some kind of hotel.

‘I have to go over this afternoon,’ Tom says when they have eaten the food that has been prepared.

Patty does not care for being left alone in the house with the body still laid out, but she does not say so. She will remain in the kitchen. She will not leave it until he returns.

‘Will you get the bread, and pork chops in Broderick’s? Get four good chops with the kidney in them.’

He says he will. She writes down other items on a scrap torn off the edge of a newspaper. He is going over to bet, she guesses: nothing that happens can prevent him from laying down his bets. Still freckled and still incredulous about the eyes, though a grey-haired woman now, Patty has never in her life gambled on a horse or a greyhound: all that is a man’s thing.