“Weekdays three till half-eleven. I do a Saturday or Sunday if they’re short. I don’t have to. We have the union now, thanks be to God,” the waiter replied slowly from his trance.

“Thanks be to James Connolly and Jim Larkin, you mean,” Kilmartin said.

“And that Marx fella too,” Minogue added.

“Hah,” said the waiter. The humour had broken the sea-spell. He looked to Minogue and then to Kilmartin. “I heard the poor man was after being shot.”

“Who told you that?”

“Danny the barman. He seen the commotion with the Garda cars and he went over. Before the man was covered up, too. A terrible gruesome sight, says Danny. What’s the country coming to, do you know what I mean?”

Minogue recognized the futility of a reasonable question asked in an unreasonable environment. He offered an honest appraisal. “An unnerving maturity, I’d say.”

“What?” asked the waiter.

“Is there more tea?” asked Kilmartin.

The waiter drifted away through the empty lounge, drumming on his tray. Kilmartin stretched out his legs and reached for his cigarettes. After blowing out the match with a cloud of smoke he tapped his finger on his watch.

“Look at that, would you. Hoey’s still in the bloody traffic, I’d swear.”

“He may be down on the strand. Detained or looking things over,” said Minogue. “The traffic doesn’t be that bad this hour of the day.”

Kilmartin coughed. “Boys oh boys, if the buses and the trains go on strike there’ll be convulsions as regards the same shagging traffic. There’s rumblings on that score too. We might as well stay home if there’s a bloody strike, I’m telling you. I wish they’d legislate that crowd back to work. Just once, anyway,” he said.

“Aha. So you’re not really a follower of Marx,” Minogue noted, as though he hadn’t known Kilmartin for twenty and more years. “Half my crowd at home have turned sharply to the left. I feel the breeze by times myself.”