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patience to exchange just two more conventional remarks? He had been so patient, so very patient about everything so far. Why couldn’t he have kept his temper this morning? He frowned at his reflection in the car mirror when he got back into the driving seat. He didn’t like the middle-aged tense man that looked back at him. In his mind’s eye he didn’t see himself that way; in his mind’s eye he saw himself as Ruth’s man, her strong support, the one she ran to when she was exhausted with her work, when she was full of doubts. To the little girl on the switch back at the bank, he wasprobably middle-aged Mr Murray, and if she knew about Ruth (which she might well in this village that they called a city) then she would think he was pathetic with his bit on the side, or a louse cheating on his wife.
    Dermot didn’t feel like driving anywhere. He got out of the car again and walked until he reached the canal. It was a nice crisp morning. Other people were still in their cars choking with fumes. These must be big executives, the top men, if they could come in to work as late as ten to ten, or was that right? If they were top men maybe they should have been at their desks since seven-thirty? Maybe they were the kind of men who had inherited a family business and who didn’t have to work hard because they were the bosses’ sons. Funny how you saw different sides of society when you stepped off your own little treadmill for a bit.
    Two women passed him on the canal path, bright laughing women in headscarfs. One was carrying a huge plastic bag and the other a large stuffed pillowcase; they were on their way to the launderette. They were the kind of women that Carmel would describe as nice poor things. And yet they weren’t nearly as poor as poor Carmel. They were carting their families’ washing off without a look of resentment about them. Carmel might be bending over the controls of a washing machine in her own kitchen but more likely she would just sit and stareout into the back garden. He had looked at her in off-guard moments over the last few months and this was how she was when in repose. Her face was empty as if she had left it and gone somewhere else.
    He had hoped she would find interests, but he realised more and more that this was a vain hope. She had no interests. She had nothing whatsoever that would lift her out of that sad pose. When Anna and James had had the first baby Dermot thought that this would absorb Carmel’s time, a grandchild out in Sandycove. He was certain she would be out there every second day, or encouraging Anna to leave the child in Donnybrook while she went about her business. But Dermot hadn’t understood about modern young mothers like Anna. Cilian first, and then Orla, had just become part of her own life as if they were adults. They were constantly being strapped and unstrapped into car seats. They moved with a battery of educational toys, they were quite self-sufficient wherever they went. Doting grandmothers did not come into the picture at all.
    And then of course that strap Bernadette shacked up with that Frank; ‘my flat mate,’ no less, she called him. She hadn’t been much help or support for her mother, had she? Dermot muttered to himself about her. A lot of use it had been paying for her at the College of Art, quite happy to help friends out, to step in and sell things for someone who was stuck.
    And friends? Carmel was a great one for talking about the Girls. Where were the girls now when they were needed? That Sheila, the schoolmistress rushing into the convent this morning as if her life depended on it. Great friend she’d be if anyone needed one; ‘I don’t talk, I don’t listen, I don’t know things …’ marvellous! And who else was there? There was Ethel … she and Carmel had got on quite well at one stage. But there as well as anywhere else Carmel hadn’t been able to cope. She had talked and talked about not returning David and Ethel’s hospitality, and