She handed the receiver to her husband. He exchanged it for the bottle of wine and raised his eyebrows. Kathleen shook her head.

“Down in the dumps again,” she whispered. “I told her we’d be down for sure tomorrow.”

Minogue tried to hide his irritation. He picked up one of the bars of chocolate that Kathleen had lined up for the Hallowe’en callers tonight.

“Hello, Maura, and how are you all below?”

“Hello, Matt. Arra you know how it is. We’re nearly swimming. The Stone Fields and Durrus are under water these three weeks. It’s fish we should be farming.”

A name for every field and ditch, Minogue remembered. He had his nail under the wrapper now.

“Was it ever any other way, Maura love?” he tried. The foil slid up under his thumb and chocolate showed. “And how’s Mick?”

“Well enough now. The joints are bad with him in the morning, what with the weather and the time of year. And of course there’s the age. Like they say, closer to the wood. There’s no avoiding that, is there? God has His own plans.”

“We’ll be down by tea-time tomorrow, Maura. Make sure you have a pack of cards in the house and a bit of meat.” Kathleen laughed, at his pronunciation of meat as mate, he believed.

“God, Matt, you’re a caution. But listen now. I phoned for a reason. It’s to tell you or Kathleen that there’s an envelope of stuff here for you. It’s from Mr Crossan, the man we talked to about Eoin’s predicament there…and he gave us the best advice. Very nice man, but his own way about things. Maybe you know him, do you?”