He drinks for a while longer; other matters are talked about. Then he picks up the plastic bag of groceries and makes his way back to where he has parked the car. Dusk is gathering; the air is colder than it has been all day; the sky has reddened in the west. In the car he strokes the dog’s head before he starts the engine. Its tail wags, thumping against the door of the car. ‘Aren’t you the patient fellow?’ he says, the praise the dog likes best.

Dusk gathers as he drives through the countryside. On the bridge the bronze plate that honours a hero has been dulled by time. Lichen has crept on to the concrete it’s set in. He passes by, unaffected by its presence.

‘Is it still cold?’ Patty enquires, unpacking the groceries.

‘It is.’

‘Did you see anyone?’

He mentions the barman in Spillane’s and the man reading the Irish Press, and the woman who’d engaged him in conversation at the till in Meath’s. He makes no reference to Esmeralda Coyne because there is no need to. ‘Broderick’s will close their doors,’ he says. In the closer of the two sculleries he prepares a plate of food for his dog and then returns to await his own food at the table.

She opens a tin of peaches he has bought and spoons the fruit on to two plates. The chops are fried, slices of fresh bread cut. Tea is made.

Patty guesses that Esmeralda Coyne was on the watch out for him. She’d have known he’d be over because she’d have looked in the papers to see what races were running. She’d have said something because the death would have prompted it.

‘The horse I had came in,’ he says.

‘Did you win much, Tom?’

‘Not much. Only it came in when I knew it would. I was pleased about that.’

He, too, is pondering the future. You could have a hotel and strangers would walk through the rooms that had been the Rollestons’. You would make a profit. The visitors would come with their luggage, as the visitors had at the time of the wedding, only all of it would be easier because of the bridge being there. They would drink whiskey in the hall and sit down to their dinner. You’d grow vegetables for them in the garden. One day, ages ago, Esmeralda Coyne laid it all out for him. The island would be different then, a new place altogether, with all that coming and going. And Esmeralda is young enough to have a child or two.

‘Ah, great,’ he says as his chops are placed before him. The black dog is stretched out by the door. An alarm clock ticks on the dresser.

‘What was the name of the horse, Tom?’

‘Lashaway. A young filly.’

‘It’s good she won.’