"No way, Da. Not a bit of it." Iseult resumed earnestly. "Anyone can see that you do your thinking. Pat says that you have the look of a man that's always thinking."

"You may congratulate Pat for his prescience. But remind him that he'll have to find less obtrusive ways of ingratiating himself with his girlfriend's parents than by having such flattery reported indirectly. Suggest perhaps that he comment on your mother's cooking," Minogue said lightly.

Pat was Iseult's new boyfriend. He had appeared at the Minogue house riding an ungainly bicycle. In Minogue's youth such tall bicycles were called High Nellies. Policemen rode these heavy, gearless bikes imperiously on rural patrols, farmers rode them up and down bog roads with buckets dangling from the handlebars. Pat wore cropped hair in the manner of a foreign legionnaire or a jailbird. All his wardrobe appeared to be black.

Iseult left her dishes by the sink and headed for the kitchen door. Minogue and his wife sat without speaking for ten minutes. A bluebottle dithered noisily around the window, stopping and starting. He or she finally made it to the open window. The smell of cut grass came in from the neighbour's lawn. Minogue noticed Kathleen's hands as they fingered saucers, the sugar bowl. Back to the saucer. This is what life is, Minogue thought, it happens this way. He was waking up.

"Better be off. I'm Jimmy Kilmartin today. Work to be done."

"Matt. Before you go. I heard Daithi taking the Holy Name and effin' and blindin' out of him the other day when he thought I couldn't hear him. I take great offence at the use of The Holy Name, I needn't tell you."

Minogue almost agreed aloud that she needn't. Daithi had been saying such things for effect. They had found their mark.

"You'll have a word with him then, will you?" Kathleen said, "I'd only be giving out to him."