I thought of King David. They used to bring him virgins to sleep in his bed and warm his old bones. Old, cold, bones. Once, in the poor farmhouses, some farmers’ families would only have one bedroom and they would all have to sleep together. My mind was like a disobedient dog: it would go off without approval or permission and roll in matters that I wished to know nothing of. It went on sniffing and scratching at the oubliette where the subject of incest lay concealed until I thought I should go mad. The dairy women had held the same biblical superstition that the young should never lie beside the old, for their vitality would all be drained away: they would fade and wither, while the old would rise, rosy-cheeked, with renewed vigour and go on living. I could not, at the moment, imagine why they should want to. I could not, at the moment, see any virtue in living whatsoever.

Yet another morning had come round. Life was like some debilitating, hypnotic game composed of endless repetition: some cosmic fruit-machine—mindless, mechanical, like the monsters in the pub by the river. The mere speeding succession of days was enough to unhinge the reason. I longed to be back—at home, where the days had seemed to flow, not fall in, one upon another, with a jangle and a flash, and be gone again.

I thought of telephoning Father O’Flynn, but what could I say? That I wished I was dead? He might reply that, doubtless, I soon would be, adding that my desire was sinful. That I wished I’d never lived? Even I could see that that was pointless. And it was a lie, for I had once taken great joy in life. That I must prevent my son’s marriage? He would think I was a jealous, possessive old woman, for he was not the cleverest of men, our good parish priest.

I sat down, for I knew that Lili would soon be round. She could not tolerate the atmosphere in Monica’s house and when she couldn’t be bothered to go to town she came to me to smoke and drink my whisky. Have I said that before?

She came, sure enough: light-footed with a dancer’s step, her hair like filaments of light and her skirts floating.

‘I brought my homework,’ she said, and sat at the kitchen table making flowers.

‘What do you think would happen,’ I asked, ‘if I told Syl about Margaret?’