'You look like twins.'

He came through the minor procedure with no trouble but was annoyed to learn that he'd be on a couple of medications for the rest of his life.

'You get used to it,' I said. 'And the daytime ones you can wash down with a glass of wine.'

He grinned. 'Is that what you do?'

'Between us, yes, sometimes.'

'Well, thanks for coming and not bringing grapes.'

I handed over the Hemingway novel, which I'd finished, shook his hand and left. At the nurses' station I heard a man asking where Patrick was. He was pale and ginger-haired and he did a double-take when he saw me.

'I'm Patrick's cousin,' I said. 'He's doing fine.'

'Glad to hear it. God, I thought you were him making a break.' He laughed and stuck out his hand. 'Martin Milton-Smith, a colleague of Patrick's. Good to meet you.'

We shook. 'Cliff Hardy.'

I thought he reacted to the name but I couldn't be sure. He smoothed down a silk tie that nicely matched his suit, and went down the corridor in the direction the nurse had given him.

'Does Mr Malloy get many visitors?' I asked the nurse.

'So far only two-you and him.'

A few days later Patrick appeared at my door in the late afternoon. He had two cans of draught Guinness in a paper bag and the Hemingway book in his hand. He came in and we went out to the back area I'd bricked amateurishly years ago. I could have had it relaid when the other work on the house was done but there was something about it, lumpy and with grass growing through the cracks, I liked. We lifted the tabs on the cans and poured the brew carefully into glasses.

'Cheers,' he said. 'Looks to me as if you're doing bugger-all.'

I drank. 'That's about it, Pat.'

'Me too, more or less. I've got an idea. I'm thinking of going to Ireland to look up the Malloy Travellers. Why don't you come with me?'

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