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were stated. Tam was refusing to meet him anyhow except frontally. Old Conn was habitually a slow talker. Every sentence tended to be the harvest of long thought. He punctuated the silences with words. His inflections, the ghost of slower days in Connemara, made even argument a wistful air, against which his son’s guttural Lallans was a jarring discord.
    ‘Ye’re a sair hert tae yer mither, son,’ Conn said, still wanting to seduce a response from him rather than demand it. ‘She’s that worried.’
    ‘Ah see ma mither every week. Ah ken hoo she feels.’
    ‘Do ye? Aboot the wee one?’
    ‘Aye. Ah thocht that’s whit it wis. Because he’s no’ et the Catholic schil.’
    ‘Why is he no’, Tam? Angus wis bad enough. Noo that’s two o’ them at Protestant schil. Why d’ye send them there?’
    ‘Because it’s nearer.’
    ‘Oh, Tam!’ The old man gave the words a profound sadness and at the same time a terrible finality, as if they were an excommunication. He seemed surprised that Tam, with such blasphemy scarcely cool on his lips, could still rise from the table, tear a spill from his newspaper, cross to the fire and light a cigarette.
    As far as there had been a conversation, it was finished. Old Conn had come up against a familiar opacity that to him was fathomless and frightening. Whatever thoughts he had once had were long since stultified into attitudes, and these were all he could offer a situation which hurt him brutally. He retreated behind them now with a kind of glazed automatism. These formalised exchanges were an area of earned articulacy between them, being a frequently experienced conclusion to their attempts to meet each other on this issue. While Old Conn read his son the sermon of his wayward self, Tam, tying on his good boots across the fire from him, gave him the ritual responses.
    ‘Whit’s happened to ye? Sometimes Ah think Ah should never hiv left Ireland.’
    ‘Naw. That’s richt. Then we could all’ve starved in a state o’ grace.’
    ‘Where d’ye get yer thochts? Yer blasphemous thochts.’
    They grow in pits. Ye can howk them oot wi’ the coal.’
    ‘Nae wonder ye’ve had trouble gettin’ jobs. The way ye talk. Ye’ve never known yer place.’
    ‘Ah’ve still tae find it. In the meantime, ma place is wherever Ah happen tae be.’
    ‘Look roon ye! Ye’ve a hoose an’ a family an’ a guid enough joab. Ye don’t know hoo lucky ye are. When Ah came over here
    ‘Ah ken, Ah ken. Ye chapped the door o’ Kerr the builder. An’ he let ye sleep in a shed fur a fortnicht. An’ ye worked two weeks fur jist the price o’ yer meals. Did he chain ye up at nichts, feyther?’
    ‘Tam!’ Jenny’s voice as she turned from her washing surprised them both, the shock it expressed providing an objective measurement of the distance between them.
    Tam stood up and when he spoke it was an indirect plea to his father for a truce.
    ‘Luk, feyther. We’ve had a’ this afore. Ah ken ye had it rough. An’ Ah’m sorry. So there it is. But that’s nae excuse fur kiddin’ oan this is comfort. It’s mebbe better, but it’s no’ guid.’
    ‘Ye’re too taken up wi’ the body. Instead o’ the soul.’
    ‘So are a few folk, feyther. Ah don’t see mony priests wi’ malnutrition.’
    ‘Whit aboot the wee fella? He’s got a soul too, ye know.’
    ‘Then let Goad fin’ it.’
    Old Conn retracted from him, as if not sure how closely God could localise his thunderbolts. He shook his head in disbelief. Tam put his white silk scarf round his neck, collected his jacket and cap, wanting to avoid further abrasion.
    ‘Ah’m awa doon tae the corner, Jen. Ah’ll no’ be long. Dae ye want tae hing oan, feyther? Or wull Ah walk ye doon?’
    His father said nothing. He stared at the fire, Jetting Tam and Jenny look at each other across a silence. His eyes looked watery in the firelight. Having sounded the depth of his bafflement, he looked at Jenny, but spoke at Tam.
    ‘Ye never