‘Bad news?’ he asked, and right away he was sorry he’d said it. He lowered himself onto his knees and began turning the knob on the radiator.

‘Will you have tea, Donal?’ she asked, rising from her chair and walking to the sideboard. He watched the dirty soles of her otherwise white feet flashing at him as she crossed the floor. And he remembered where he had seen her before – at a play at the Community Centre, one of the silly things they did at Christmas and everyone had to go and you had to pay £10 for a video of it. And his daughter had danced with a flurry of snowflakes and afterwards Colette had ushered them back onto the stage – and she was barefoot. And he had thought maybe that was to bring herself down to the height of the children, but still she’d looked so tall beside them. And he’d kept thinking what an eccentric thing that was to do. And Dolores had said on the way home in the car, ‘With all the money Shaun Crowley has he should buy his wife a pair of shoes.’

‘I won’t stay for tea, Colette,’ he said. ‘I’ll just bleed this for you and I’ll hit the road.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The radiator – it’s not coming up to temperature,’ he said. ‘It needs to be bled.’

‘Oh, right,’ she said.

‘Had you not noticed they weren’t giving out much heat?’

‘I hadn’t, I suppose. I’ve barely had them on.’

‘Well, you’ll need them soon,’ he said. ‘Have you got an old rag lying around?’

She brought him a tea towel. He wrapped it around the base of the pipe. As he turned the little key in the knob, he saw the oily liquid pour down the pipe and soak into the cloth. ‘I’ll just do the one in the bedroom for you and I’ll be on my way,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Donal.’

He walked towards the bedroom door. ‘Do you mind?’ he said, placing his fingers on the handle.

‘Not at all. Go ahead,’ she said.

Her sheets were so tangled they made one long braid that ran the length of the bed. The fitted sheet had come loose, exposing the yellowing mattress beneath. On the floor was another stack of books so high that it acted as a kind of bedside table where an ashtray rested, with two white cigarette butts curled up beside each other like maggots. The room was not so different from Madeleine’s, with garments spilling from drawers and the top of the dresser covered in sprays and bottles. There was a jewellery tree with necklaces and bracelets hanging there, and he touched a silver bangle and watched it rock gently. The window looked directly at the front of his own home and he was struck by how empty it looked, the windows glaring back at him, giving nothing of the interior away, and really you could think that there was no one at all living there. And he felt her eyes on him then but when he turned around, she was reading that letter.

He bled the radiator and walked back to the kitchen. She was at the table again, her black hair falling down the back of the chair. She reached her hand around and drew her hair aside, just an inch, so that he could see where her jumper hung loose and the soft curve of her shoulder was exposed to him. It was a strange gesture, the way you might move a curtain aside to peer out. She held her hand there, pressing her hair to the back of her neck, head bowed.

‘How are your children, Donal?’

There was something so direct about the way she asked the question that he wondered if she knew Dolores was pregnant. But Dolores was barely showing yet. Had she guessed somehow? Did she expect him to make some proud announcement about it?

‘They’re grand,’ he said.

‘Madeleine’s the only one I know. She was in a play we did at the Community Centre, when she was very small. She had a sweet little voice.’

‘Snowflakes,’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ she said.

‘Oh well,’ he said, wiping his hands on the tea towel, ‘she’s thirteen now and there’s not much sweet about her.’

‘Oh!’ Colette said. She was taking a drink from her cup. Her eyes widened. ‘Is she a rebel, Donal?’

‘That might be what you’d call her, all right.’

‘Ah well, Donal, we must look after our rebels, because they’re the ones who’ll protect us in the end. I hope so at least. That’s what I’m holding out for,’ she said. ‘I have a rebel. My middle fellow – Barry. We sent him away to boarding school in Dublin and he was kicked out. He’s back at St Joseph’s now because it’s the only place that’ll have him.’

‘Well, St Joseph’s was good enough for me.’

‘Of course, Donal, I’m not saying anything about St Joseph’s. It’s a grand school and they’re great to have him. But we wanted Barry to go away and learn some independence . . . discipline. He won’t listen to me, that’s for sure. You should see how much he hates me. God, it’s extraordinary – to have all of that anger pointed towards you.’

An ecstatic smile spread across her face. He watched her eyes close slowly and as she opened them her expression had composed itself again.

‘That’s what I mean,’ she continued. ‘He won’t always hate me, it’s a phase he’s going through, and then imagine having all of that energy directed in your favour.’

He did not know what to say to that, but he could see she wasn’t waiting for a response. She was staring at a book lying open face-down on the table. Her fingertips were back to her lips again but this time they covered her whole mouth like she was trying to stop herself from saying something.

‘I remember we did him in school,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘Yeats,’ he said, nodding at the book. ‘It wasn’t all woodwork and metalwork at St Joseph’s, you know.’

‘I’m sorry if I insulted you, Donal – I didn’t mean—’

‘“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” – that was one of his, wasn’t it?’

‘It was indeed,’ she said, and picked up the book. ‘Yeats is someone I have a lot of time for, poor lost soul that he was.’

‘And he was the one who was in love with Maud Gonne?’

‘Besotted,’ she said. ‘And when she rejected him, he tried it on with her daughter.’

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Those bloody Protestants – you couldn’t trust them.’

He had made her smile and the pleasure of that was a slow heat spreading through him. He turned his face to the floor, his cheeks burning.

‘I’ll go and get the van now so I can get rid of this cot for you,’ he said.

‘I’m very grateful to you, Donal.’

He let himself out, and as he passed the window, he could see she had picked up that letter again and was reading it more carefully, her eyes scanning every line, her lips moving as if she were whispering the words to herself. She had been thinking about that letter the entire time he was there, and while he had been so alert to every movement her body made, she had not looked at him once. And he wanted to turn around, to be back in that kitchen with her – to walk up behind her and gather her hair into his hand, to turn it around his fist. He wanted her attention.

Chapter 7

Colette checked the flowers in the rearview mirror. An extravagant arrangement of yellow roses and eucalyptus and baby’s breath, it rocked back and forth with the motion of the car. She’d driven to Donegal Town to purchase them that morning, and to visit the off-licence there. Her not infrequent trips to restock on wine at the supermarket in Ardglas had been registered by Mrs Doherty. Often dour and reserved, on her previous visit, Mrs Doherty had taken her money with such slow and studied seriousness that Colette thought the great weight of her conscience might forbid her from completing the transaction. But of course she had, and Colette had decided there were better places to spend what little money she still possessed.

She refocused her attention on the road ahead as she approached the main street of Ardglas. Up on her left, a group of lads in the navy St Joseph’s uniform sauntered along the pavement. They moved with such synchronicity – shoulders rounded, hands stuffed in pockets, sliding along like a shoal of fish. It was only when she drew closer that she could distinguish her son as the centre of the group. She checked the clock on the dashboard – lunchtime wasn’t for at least half an hour. They were probably headed for the lane near the chip shop where lads from the school went to smoke. She drove past them and pulled up at the curb and almost didn’t recognise her son’s face in the mirror. A smile slung ear to ear, but so taut, so sly.

The group passed her and she rolled down her window. ‘Barry,’ she called, but not loudly enough. She started to move the car so that it hovered alongside them. She shouted again. ‘Barry Crowley, I know you saw me.’ One of the boys elbowed him and nodded in her direction and Barry careened off towards the car.

‘What do you want?’ he said.

He had a new haircut – grown out and choppy and the fringe almost down over his eyes. He looked like one of those Gallagher brothers from that band everyone was listening to.

She pulled the handbrake. ‘Barry, what are you doing out here at this time?’