Finding himself staring into the great glass wall of the Hodges Figgis bookstore, he glimpsed his own reflection in the glass: scant, unkempt hair flying over his head in the breeze, bags under his eyes, his gangly, lumbering body hunched against the cold, hands in the pockets of his shapeless down jacket. Dispirited, he stalked into the bookstore and automatically made his way to the fiction section, scanning the shelves for his own work. They had single copies of three of his novels. He reached down and pulled one of the books out—his first real success. A novella, it seemed shamefully flimsy to him now, the pages flopping over in his thick fingers like a limp wrist. He took the book in both hands, stiffening it, and peered at the author photo. A slender, thirty-year-old man in a tweed jacket looked out at him with a bemused expression: shoulder-length hair, mouth turned up in one corner—there was something questioning and arrogant in his gaze. Ciaran felt no sense of connection to that young writer; what’s more, he reckoned if he met him, he wouldn’t like him much.

Ciaran knew he was digging himself into a good old fug. Not just a bad mood, but a trench he would be inhabiting for a long time. He felt a sour, familiar comfort as he moled his way into this darkness. There was something almost reassuring about the descent—down, down, down—to a place where no one could reach him, where he loved no one, and no one loved him. There was pleasure—yes, he confessed it, knew it: there was onanistic pleasure in his sadness and he didn’t even feel guilty about it. At least it was honest. He’d had enough of impersonating happiness, of his wife’s faintly accusatory, percussive kisses on his head at breakfast, his daughters’ wily attempts to make him laugh, his own brittle resolve to make it to the next book without getting depressed again. He didn’t know how many more of these bouts Maeve could take. One day he feared he’d wake up and she’d be gone. A woman like that, a humorous, sensual, hardheaded woman, was a queen who stayed until she left. Eighteen years so far, but she was capable—the most loyal woman on earth, salt of it—was capable, he knew, of leaving. Like a feral cat, tamed for a time, she’d slip away with her kittens. He mustn’t take her for granted. And yet he felt himself drifting away from her and everything incandescent in his life, like a man succumbing to a dream at the wheel, eyes fluttering shut, his car careening across the dual carriageway.