But the truth was, there was a c). He could have bought a new tube and a new tire as well. This he had refused to do, citing to Brid the outrageous prices of same. This wasn’t news, of course.

Brid, his wife, needed the car: a teacher couldn’t be late. Their daughter Aisling had still said that she liked going to the child-minder’s on Dadda’s bike anyway. That had changed lately, when she had become very clingy with Brid in the mornings. Tears, haste, annoyance, guilt. Repeated several times daily. Were there Terrible Three And A Halve’s?

Fanning didn’t like to think that Aisling had picked up on something between himself and Brid. He felt sure that Brid had been on the brink of asking him why exactly Aisling had to go to a child-minder’s all day. It was understood that he needed time to himself for his writing and the freedom to think — or not think.

He checked the windows around the house again. Then he set the alarm, pulled the door behind him, and he locked it. It was only a quarter to ten, so he had plenty of time yet to get into town, and up to that restaurant in Smithfield. Even if he were a few minutes late, it wouldn’t be the end of the world to keep Breen, Colm Breen, Irish film’s mover and shaker, waiting for once. And whether Breen liked to be reminded or not, he and Dermot Fanning went back a long, long way. Breen had been the gawky newcomer in the Film Society then, and Fanning the third-year student running the meetings.

Breen had become master of the schmooze, his country accent massaged to mid-Atlantic over the intervening years. To be fair, he had always made time for Fanning, and as much as it had angered Fanning over the years, Breen’s praise had also buoyed him.