Now that we can go no farther, we must turn back. Maybe the way back will somehow make sense of the coming. Here and there, flat white shells lie shining and washed up on the sand. I stoop to gather them. They feel smooth and clean and brittle in my hands. We turn back along the beach and walk on, seeming to walk a greater distance than the one we crossed in reaching the place where we could not pass, and then the moon disappears behind a darkish cloud and we cannot see where we are going. At this point, Kinsella lets out a sigh, stops, and lights the lamp.

‘Ah, the women are nearly always right, all the same,’ he says. ‘Do you know what the women have a gift for?’

‘What?’

‘Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what’s coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.’

He shines the light along the strand to find our footprints, to follow them back, but the only prints he can find are mine.

‘You must have carried me there,’ he says.

I laugh at the thought of me carrying him, at the impossibility, then realise it was a joke, and that I got it."

"When the moon comes out again, he turns the lamp off and by the moon’s light we easily find and follow the path we took out of the dunes. When we reach the top, he won’t let me put my shoes on but does it for me. Then he does his own and knots the laces. We stand then, to pause and look back out at the water.

‘See, there’s three lights now where there was only two before.’

I look out across the sea. There, the two lights are blinking as before, but with another, steady light, shining there also.

‘Can you see it?’ he says.

‘I can,’ I say. ‘It’s there.’

And that is when he puts his arms around me and gathers me into them as though I were his.

6

After a week of rain, on a Thursday, the letter comes. It is not so much a surprise as a shock. Already I have seen the signs: the shampoo for head lice in the chemist’s shop, the fine-tooth combs. In the gift gallery there are copy books stacked high and different coloured biros, rulers, mechanical drawing sets. In the hardware, the lunchboxes and satchels and hurling sticks are left out front, where the women can see them.

We come home and take soup, dipping our bread, breaking it, slurping a little, now that we know each other. Afterwards, I follow Kinsella out to the hayshed where he makes me promise not to look while he is welding. I am following him around today, I realise, but I cannot help it. It is past the time for the post to come but he does not suggest I fetch it until evening, until the cows are milked and the milking parlour is swept and scrubbed.

‘I think it’s time,’ he says, washing his boots with the hose.

I get into position, using the front step as a starting block. Kinsella looks at the watch and slices the air with his hand. I take off, down the yard, the lane, make a tight corner, open the box, reach for the letters, and race back to the step, knowing my time was not as fast as yesterday’s.

‘Nineteen seconds faster than your first run,’ Kinsella says. ‘And a two-second improvement on yesterday, despite the heavy ground. It’s like the wind, you are.’

He takes the letters and goes through them, but today, instead of making jokes about what’s inside of each, he pauses.

‘Is that from Mammy?’

‘You know,’ he says, ‘I think it could be.’

‘Do I have to go home?’

‘Well, it’s addressed to Edna so why don’t we give it in to her and let her read it.’

We go into the parlour where she is sitting with her feet up, looking through a book of knitting patterns. There’s a coal fire in the grate, and little plumes of black smoke sliding back down into the room.

‘This chimney, we never got it cleaned, John. I’m sure there must be a crow’s nest in it.’

Kinsella slides the letter onto her lap, over what she is reading. She sits up, opens the letter and reads it. It’s one small sheet with writing on both sides. She puts it down then picks it up and reads it again.

‘Well,’ she says, ‘you have a new brother. Nine pounds, two ounces.’

‘Great,’ I say.

‘Don’t be like that,’ Kinsella says.

‘What?’ I say.

‘And school starts on Monday,’ she says. ‘Your mother has asked us to leave you up at the weekend so she can get you togged out and all.’

‘I have to go back then?’

‘Aye,’ she says. ‘But sure didn’t you know that?’

I nod and look at the page in her lap.

‘You couldn’t stay here forever with us two old forgeries.’

I stand there and stare at the fire, trying not to cry. It is a long time since I have done this and, in doing it, remember that it is the worst thing you can possibly do. I don’t so much hear as feel Kinsella leaving the room.

‘Don’t upset yourself,’ the woman says. ‘Come over here.