‘Just wait until the summer,’ Donal said. His look was softer, his tone measured. ‘We’ll be able to charge more for it then. And if she won’t pay, we’ll get her out and get holidaymakers in. We can’t be losing out on money with another child on the way.’

‘I’m going to go up to that house tomorrow and give her a month’s notice.’

Donal stepped closer to Dolores and took his son in his arms. He lifted Eric to his face and kissed him on the ear. And then as though he were about to bestow the same blessing on Dolores, he leaned towards her. ‘You’ll go nowhere fucking near her. If I hear you’ve been up there messing with her head there’ll be trouble. OK?’ He pressed the child back into her arms and Eric let out a little squeal of discomfort. ‘And do something about your hands,’ he said. ‘They’re fucking rotten.’

She watched him striding down the hall, following the cheers and chants coming from the television in the kitchen. She dropped down on the sofa and held her son closer to her. ‘Shush, shush, shush,’ she said, rocking Eric back and forth. The child lay entirely still and silent in her arms. ‘Madeleine,’ she shouted.

‘Yeah,’ came the thin call from upstairs.

‘Where’s Jessica?’ she said.

‘She’s with me.’

She felt the baby turn inside her and placed her hand on her stomach. ‘Shush, shush, shush,’ she said.

Chapter 21

The house was in complete darkness when James pulled up outside. She would be at one of her classes, he thought, yoga or tai chi or painting. This is what she did when they fought – she absented herself. Sometimes she brought Niall with her and he sat in the corner reading or drawing. But he couldn’t think what class she would have on a Friday night. And her absence was only a surprise to him because she’d been so present in his mind during his trip to Dublin, and he’d spent the entire four-hour drive home imagining what he would say to her.

He unlocked the door and turned on the hall lights, left his weekend case at the foot of the stairs. He walked to the notepad beside the phone and found it blank. The house was cold. He went to the hot press and turned on the heating. The air in the kitchen smelled fresh, the surface of the cooker gleamed. The fridge was near empty. He checked in the spare room and all her things were there, everything placed in an orderly way – the corners of the bed sheets neatly tucked, the duvet perfectly smooth.

In the sitting room he opened the drinks cabinet and poured himself a measure of whiskey. He turned on the television and started to watch the nine o’clock news but was distracted by the thought that Orla should have been home by now. Was she standing at the bus stop in the town waiting for someone to collect her? But the bus would have arrived hours ago, and Izzy would not forget something like that. Had Orla gone to stay with one of her friends for the weekend? This was the kind of thing Izzy usually found a way to communicate to him – she would have written it on the notepad.

And so he guessed that during his time away his wife had decided to deepen her silence, to punish him further. He had hoped that a bit of time apart would have eased tensions between them, had returned prepared to begin some kind of reconciliation. And he could think of only one reason why in the past week she would have hardened against him more fully. When he’d phoned his office from Dublin, Cassie could not resist telling him the great bit of gossip about Father Dempsey vanishing. She’d begun to relay the details with a modicum of delicacy, knowing that he was a friend of the family, but by the time she’d finished delivering the news she was breathless with excitement – the whole town was talking about it, she’d said. And Izzy was no fool – she’d have guessed that he’d had something to do with it. He’d been prepared to play dumb if the circumstances allowed for that, but it seemed more likely now they would have to have it out over this, that he would have to hold his hands up and admit his part in it.

He switched over from the nine o’clock news to the ten o’clock, watched the same headlines rehashed, turned off the TV. He rose from the sofa, walked to the hallway. He took Izzy’s phone book from the drawer and began to look for Margaret Brennan’s number. She was Izzy’s closest confidante, and he knew she was aware of how much they fought, but still he felt embarrassed at having to phone her to find out where his wife and children might be. And what if he had to call the Guards? He counted backwards in his head – it was five days since he had even laid eyes on his wife and a much greater length of time since they had spoken. And how were things between you? And he would have to say that things had not been good for some time. And is it unusual for your wife to disappear like this? And while it was not entirely unusual, he had never gone this long without having some communication with her. And do you have any reason to believe that your wife might be in any kind of danger, that she might have done some harm to herself?

As he lifted the receiver to dial Margaret’s number, he heard the noise of a car pull up. He put down the phone. Izzy came through the door unbuttoning her raincoat. She was out of breath. She looked as old and tired as he had ever seen her – no make-up, but more than this, it was as though some fundamental layer had been stripped from her. She passed him without acknowledgement, took her cigarettes from the pocket of her coat, and hung it under the stairs.

‘Jesus Christ – where have you been?’ he said.

She walked into the kitchen and he followed. She was sitting in Niall’s place, facing the door, her arms folded on the table. She didn’t meet his eye when he walked into the room. She wore a plain white blouse buttoned to the throat.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Sit down, James.’

‘You frightened the life out of me,’ he said, stepping closer to the table. ‘Where are Niall and Orla?’

‘They’re with Margaret Brennan – they’re going to stay there for the night, to give us a chance to talk.’

‘You could have left a note. I was going out of my mind.’ He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. ‘So you’re talking to me at least – that’s a good start.’

But it was bothering him, how prim and formal she looked sitting there in that starched white blouse.

‘James, there’s something I need to say to you.’

‘Well, go on, spit it out. I’m just glad to see you. Honest to God, I thought . . .’

‘James—’

‘Well, I don’t know what I thought, but . . .’

‘James,’ she said again, meeting his eye, ‘I want a separation.’

‘What?’

‘I want a separation,’ she enunciated.

A sharp breath shot from his throat. ‘You’ve said that before.’

‘I have. But it’s different this time. I’ve spoken to a solicitor and I’m going to start the process of—’

‘You’ve spoken to Peter?’

‘No, James. I’ve found my own solicitor. But that was no easy task. There were a few who wouldn’t even speak to me when they found out who I was married to. I had to go all the way to Letterkenny before I found a woman solicitor who talked me through everything and—’

‘Hold on, hold on – you’re telling me you’ve gone to speak to a solicitor, before we’ve even had a chance to discuss this?’

‘James, we’ve been talking for twenty years. Honestly – what’s left to say?’

‘But I’m back now and we can hash this out.’ He tried to steady the panic in his voice. ‘I know I’ve been preoccupied lately, there’s been a lot going on. I’ve neglected you. But I’m ready to do whatever—’

‘Next Friday I’ll bring Niall down to Majella’s,’ Izzy said, ‘and on the way I’ll collect Orla from school—’

‘On what grounds?’

‘On the Sunday you’ll drive down to Galway to meet us, and we can talk to the kids together.’

‘You need grounds for a separation.’

‘You’ll bring the kids back with you and I’ll stay with Majella for a while. I don’t know how long. At least a week. I’ll need a bit of time to get my head together—’

‘On what grounds are you making this application,’ he said, jabbing his finger at the table.

She sighed, sat back in the chair. ‘It’s a complicated kind of description, but what it boils down to is that the marriage has broken down to the extent that a normal relationship has not existed for a period of—’

‘Oh, you’re well versed in it now, aren’t you? But that’s not going to wash. How are you going to prove that?’

‘There is a process that we’ll have to go through and—’

‘And what if I just refuse to play ball?’

‘You can make things more difficult if you want but the only ones you’ll be harming are the kids.’

‘I’m not the one who’s intent on dragging them through the courts.’

‘And I hope that while I’m away you’ll do the decent thing and find alternative accommodation.’