-One- Tess was brooding about Arthur and Brian when a large puppet bird caught her attention. Its head lunged on its unwieldy neck as it led the noisy, colourful parade along O’Connell Street. A judge rolled his eyes and absently waved a claw from his perch. His platform was dragged by lawyers, their wigs askew [...]
-Two- A few days later, it dawned a fine morning. Mungo got the children out to school and, whistling softly, he walked up Stoneybatter to cash his disability cheque. Nothing put him in good humour like a fine morning. He had even brought Connie breakfast in bed and, although she had tried to conceal it, [...]
-Three – It was where she shopped anyway, so for a week she found an excuse to go to the shopping centre every other day at about the same time. The coincidence of meeting him twice in an hour was one thing, but the moment had passed and was lost. She shrugged. Such things happened [...]
-Four- Tess managed to get out of bed. Pulling her tee-shirts down around her knees so that she crouched, she stumbled into the kitchen. It was almost eleven and the morning was fine, and while the water had left its tracks down the wall, it had dried. She filled the kettle and struck a match [...]
- Five – The Special Branch cars sped along Fairview Road, their sirens wailing, the flashing beacons held on the roof by the second man. A marked squad car emerged from a side street, its tyres screeching, and followed them. Then, as if on cue, an ice-cream van cruised by, playing its barrel-organ jingle, `A-Hunt-ing [...]
-Six- Ethna went down with chicken-pox, and Mungo stayed by her bedside and told her stories until she slept. They revived forgotten memories. Some detail always surfaced in the telling, though in truth there were few adventures to recount. One day had blended imperceptibly into the next, for the most part, but Ethna didn’t mind [...]
- Seven – The repeated loudspeaker exhortation to get her key cut now bore in on Tess’s reveries. She had been looking at the prices of paint, thinking it would be nice to decorate her flat. It would also be nice to have a spare key cut as a token to the gods who might [...]
- Eight – Mungo walked past the queues waiting for buses by the walls of Trinity College. He liked to look at people, especially at women in all their marvellous variety, and bus queues were full of wonder. A light rain was falling. In his coat pocket he clutched an appointment card for a medical [...]
- Nine – Tess laughed as she cleared Arthur’s room. This had been happening for some days now. She looked out to the back garden. Her laughter reminded her that she knew it wouldn’t last, but also of her amazement that it had happened at all. She didn’t quite know the woman she had turned [...]
- Ten – The weather remained broken and Mungo stayed indoors, haunted by the memory reflected in the rain as it trickled down the window. To have lived to find himself in that furnace of passion and abandon was a revelation of what life could after all hold. It would never happen quite like that [...]
- Eleven – So, she had thrown the dice. He had not made a sound, but he was gone sure enough, and now the muffled thud of the hall door was like a blow to her heart. Angry because he had not answered, because they had not clashed in a row, because he had not [...]
- Twelve – Mungo woke in grey light as Tess eased out of bed, stretching along the inside, and for an instant the line of her body made an image, as graceful as a wild animal, which he would never forget. He heard her piss into the bowl downstairs, then silence, until the toilet flushed. [...]
-Thirteen – Tess stayed overnight in Fairview to ease Arthur into his first day back at school. It distracted her from Mungo and her worries about where she was to live. He had insisted on giving her a key and in the end, she reasoned, she didn’t have to use it. Meanwhile it nestled in [...]
- Fourteen – They caressed each other, tentatively. They were falling apart instead of coming together, and there was nothing he could do about it. After a while they gave up their attempt to make love and simply lay in each other’s arms. She switched off the light and he brushed back her hair with [...]
– Fifteen – It was after midday; that much she knew. As usual, she dressed before waking Larry. He looked at her coldly. She supposed he thought it was the manly thing to do. Oh yes, keep the woman insecure, that was the way these young lords thought; keep her begging for you. Well, it [...]