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not a penny to pay for it? Our Albert’s not a farmer. He should be finding himself a nice wee girl and getting settled.”
    “I’m far too busy,” Ryan said. “Besides, I’m living at the camp. I need a place of my own before I can go chasing after women.”
    Ryan’s mother sat back in her chair, raised an eyebrow. “And what would you need a place of your own for? No decent girl would go to a bachelor’s home. And any that would, well, she wouldn’t be the sort for marrying, would she?”
    R YAN SLEPT HARD and deep in his old room, tired from the day’s driving. The bed creaked and rattled as he stirred with the morning’s early light. He borrowed his father’s razor to shave at the washbasin in the corner of the cold bedroom, goose pimples sprouting across his body.
    Once washed and dressed, Ryan made his way downstairs, creeping to the back door. His mother intercepted him.
    “Where are you off to?” she asked.
    “Just thought I’d take a quick walk. I haven’t seen the town in ages.”
    “All right,” his mother said. “Don’t be too long. I’ll have some breakfast for you when you get back.”
    The sun grazed the rooftops as he strolled along Main Street, a man walking a horse down the centre of the road the only other person he saw. The sound of the animal’s hooves echoed from the buildings. The man nodded as he passed. A cool breeze made Ryan button his suit jacket.
    He passed shop fronts, businesses generations old, hand-painted signs above the windows, prices and offers written in white on the glass. A needlecraft shop, a dressmaker, a gentlemen’s outfitter.
    They all seemed smaller now, as if the wood and bricks and glass had shrunk over the last twenty years. In the farthest parts of his soul, Ryan knew the reasons he seldom returned owed as much to his resentment of these buildings as they did to Tommy Mahon’s bullying. Even as a boy, he had felt a town like this was no place for him, its streets too few and too narrow, the people mired in its quicksand. Even now, he felt the place tug at his ankles, trying to regain its hold on him.
    As a teenager, Ryan had wondered at his father’s endurance of the town, unable to understand how he did not crave a better life, a bigger life. One day, he asked his father why he took on the family business despite the pittance that it earned, why he had not left and made his own world elsewhere.
    “Because you’ve only got the life you’re given,” Ryan’s father had said. “And it’s good enough.”
    But Ryan knew it would never be good enough, not then, not now.
    He stood outside the shop with the sign saying MAHON’S CASH ’N’ CARRY . Dark inside. He tried the door, found it locked.
    Ryan took another look along the street, saw it was empty, and walked around to the rear of the building. A large car, a Rover, was parked in the alleyway, and a bicycle stood propped against the wall. Ryan heard a voice issuing commands from inside the building. He approached the open doors.
    Gerard Mahon, Tommy Mahon’s son, stood smoking a cigarette with his back to the alley. A young boy, no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, stacked boxes of washing powder at Mahon’s instruction.
    “Good morning,” Ryan said.
    Mahon turned. He had gained weight since Ryan had last seen him, his face bloating with the onset of middle age. He stared for a moment before recognition softened his expression.
    “Albert Ryan? Holy Jesus, I haven’t seen you for years. I thought you’d fucked off to England.”
    “I’m just visiting my parents.” Ryan stepped into the shadow of the doorway, felt the cold of the building, smelled bleach and tobacco. “I see you’re branching out.”
    Mahon smiled and took a drag on the cigarette. “A new venture. Your auld fella can’t have all the business to himself.”
    “I suppose he can’t.” Ryan took another step inside. “It’s a funny thing, though. I heard he’s been having some trouble with his suppliers