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my m e m o r y has conflated t w o separate occasions. It is possible. W h a t m o r e can I say? I hope, Charles, this concession will soothe, even if only a little, your sense of injury.
    People think me heartless, but I am not. I have m u c h sympathy for Charlie French. I caused him great distress, no doubt of that. I humiliated him before the world.
    W h a t pain that must have been, for a m a n such as Charlie.
    He behaved very well about it. He behaved beautifully, in fact. On that last, appalling, and appallingly comic occasion, when I was being led out in handcuffs, he looked at me not accusingly, but with a sort of sadness.
    He almost smiled. A n d I was grateful. He is a source of guilt and annoyance to me n o w , but he was my friend, and —
    He was my friend. Such a simple phrase, and yet h o w affecting. I don't think I have ever used it before. W h e n I wrote it d o w n I had to pause, startled. Something welled 33

    up in my throat, as if I m i g h t be a b o u t to, yes, to w e e p .
    "What is h a p p e n i n g to m e ? Is this w h a t they m e a n by rehabilitation? Perhaps I shall leave here a r e f o r m e d character, after all.
    P o o r C h a r l i e did n o t recognise m e a t f i r s t , and w a s distinctly uneasy, I c o u l d see, at b e i n g addressed in this place, in this familiar fashion, by a person w h o s e e m e d to h i m a stranger. I w a s e n j o y i n g myself, it w a s like being in disguise. I o f f e r e d to b u y h i m a drinks but he declined, with elaborate politeness. H e h a d a g e d . H e w a s i n his early sixties, b u t he l o o k e d older. He w a s s t o o p e d , and had a little e g g - s h a p e d p a u n c h , a n d his ashen cheeks w e r e inlaid w i t h a filigree of b r o k e n veins. Y e t he g a v e an impression of, w h a t shall 1 call it, of equilibrium^ w h i c h s e e m e d n e w to h i m . It w a s as if he w e r e at last filling o u t exactly his allotted space. W h e n I k n e w h i m he had been a small-t i m e dealer in pictures and antiques. N o w he had presence, it w a s a l m o s t an air of i m p e r i u m , all the m o r e m a r k e d a m i d the g a u d y trappings of W ally's bar. It's true, there w a s still that familiar expression in his eye, at once m i s c h i e v o u s and sheepish, but I had to l o o k hard to find it.
    H e b e g a n t o e d g e a w a y f r o m m e , still queasily smiling^ but then he in turn m u s t h a v e c a u g h t s o m e t h i n g familiar in my eye, and he k n e w me at last. R e l i e v e d , he g a v e a breathy l a u g h and glanced a r o u n d the bar. T h a t I did r e m e m b e r , that glance, as if he had j u s t discovered his flies w e r e o p e n and w a s l o o k i n g to see if a n y o n e h a d noticed. Freddie! he said. W e l l well! He lit a cigarette w i t h a not altogether steady hand, and released a great w h o o s h of s m o k e t o w a r d s the ceiling. I w a s trying to recall w h e n it w a s I had first m e t h i m . H e used t o c o m e d o w n t o C o o l g r a n g e w h e n m y father w a s alive a n d h a n g a b o u t the house l o o k i n g furtive and * a p o l o g e t i c . T h e y h a d been y o u n g together, he and my parents, in their cups they w o u l d 3 4

    reminisce about hunt balls before the war, and dashing up to Dublin for the S h o w , and all the rest of it. I listened to this stuff with boundless contempt, curling an adolescent's villous lip. T h e y sounded like actors flogging away at s o m e tired old d r a w i n g - r o o m c o m e d y , projecting wildly, my mother especially, with her scarlet fingernails and metallic perm and that cracked, gin-and-smoke voice of hers. B u t to be fair to Charles, I do not think he really subscribed to this fantasy of the dear dead days. He could not ignore the tiny trill of hysteria that m a d e my mother's goitrous throat vibrate, nor the w a y my father looked at her sometimes, poised on the edge of his chair, tense as