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and winking with utter conviction, as though there were no other place on earth that he’d rather be right now, a-grinning and a-winking, than right here, in Zelda’s Café. In his years out of office Maurice had read a lot of books about communication and persuasion and entrepreneurial self-realization and reinvention, and during his time in the wilderness he’d learned that in life generally and in politics in particular, no matter how you felt or what your circumstances, you needed to appear always as though this really mattered— this coffee morning, this photo shoot, this meeting, this community liaison event. Even if it didn’t. Which it didn’t. Maurice had become, even more than he was previously, an of the and in the moment kind of a guy. When Maurice Morris went out campaigning around Tumdrum and District he put all thoughts of himself, of his many personal successes and achievements, from his mind and focused instead on the little people and their problems and difficulties, and the amazing thing was, it worked. They flocked to him, the people, because he, Maurice Morris, was in the moment. He was the moment: he had presence, you couldn’t deny it, and right now, at this moment, middle-aged and elderly women who should have known better were in the moment with him, giggling and photographing each other, posing cheek to cheek with him, using the cameras on their mobile phones, many of them for the first time, delighted that they’d upgraded, as their daughters and the suited salespeople in the Carphone Warehouse in the Fountain Center at Rathkeltair had wisely suggested. There were megapixel flashes, and much automatic red-eye reduction, and laughter, and good-natured banter and repartee, and even though it was Zelda’s, and even though it was a Friday afternoon in September, and even though it was softly raining outside, it felt like a glittering gala event. Maurice Morris was about as glamorous as it got on the North Antrim coast. Short of George Clooney himself turning up in Zelda’s, as part of some promotional tour for a new film about theGiant’s Causeway— Atlantic Ocean’s Eleven ?—Maurice Morris was it .
    “Come on now, fellas, sit up straight,” said Minnie, returning with coffee and scones.
    “What?” said Israel, mesmerized by this manifestation of pure, adulterated charisma in their midst.
    “Sit up straight, for goodness’ sake,” said Minnie. “You make the place look untidy. He’ll be over in a minute.”
    Minnie leaned across and pulled Israel’s T-shirt collar straight.
    “There,” she said, “that’s better.”
    “I’m not a child,” said Israel.
    “Well…” said Ted. “I wouldn’t say that exactly. The mental age of a—”
    “It’s my birthday next week, actually,” said Israel.
    “Ah. Really?” said Minnie. “How old are ye going to be, pet?”
    “About a hundred and twenty?” said Ted.
    “Sssh,” said Minnie. “I asked him , not you. Do you know how old he is?”
    “Not a clue,” said Ted. “But I could guess. What do you reckon?”
    “Well…” Minnie looked Israel up and down: the mess of hair, the scrap of beard, the sullen cheeks, the gold-rimmed spectacles pushed up onto his forehead, the broken-down brogues, the baggy corduroy trousers, the Triple H World Wrestling Entertainment T-shirt featuring a grimacing sweaty-looking man with long hair in black underpants, one of Brownie’s. “Difficult to say,” she concluded diplomatically. “What do you think?”
    “Hello?” said Israel, trying to break into the conversation, unsuccessfully.
    “He carries on like a wee cappy, and he blethers on like a grumphie old man,” said Ted. “I’d place him around fifty.”
    “Fifty! I’m not fifty!” said Israel. “Fifty! Do I look fifty?!”
    “Early fifties?” said Ted.
    “It’s the beard, maybe,” said Minnie.
    “Fifty! I’m nowhere near fifty! I’m going to be thirty!”
    “Thirty?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh,” said