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Here she struck the table with her stick. Miss Annie looked startled that her trivial mention of milk should induce such emphasis. She took off her apron.

–We’ll see, she said ominously. Is the cabby outside? I have all the stuff ready in there.

–Yes, Mr Hanafin is out there. Just call him in. Are these young gentlemen washed?

–As far as possible. What the pair of them need is a good bath. You know the way the water is here.

–The Lord save us, Mrs Crotty said grimacing, is there anything under heaven’s sky more terrible than dirt. But sure we’ll see after all that in good time, please God. Well now!

Miss Annie went out and came back with Mr Hanafin the cabby. He had a ruby face, maybe from all the porter he drank, and was correctly dressed—hard hat and a caped surcoat of dark green.

–The top of the morning to you all, he said genially. I was just saying, Mrs Crotty, that Miss Annie is looking very well.

–Is that so? Well, she had a bit of a handful here but then Mr Collopy is another handful and maybe a little rest from him was as good to her as a fortnight in Skerries.

–Ah now she has great colour, Mr Hanafin replied pleasantly. Is them two young archdukes to be me passengers?

–Yes, Miss Annie said, they are the main cargo. See you don’t spill them out.

–Be the dad, Mr Hanafin said smiling, Marius will be delighted. We’ll get a right trot: this morning.

–Who is Marius, the brother asked.

–The mare, man.

Afterwards the brother told me he thought this was a strange name for a mare. Maria would have been better. He was a very wide-awake character even then. I think I used some coarse word here about the animal outside. He told me I should not speak like that.

–Why?

–Teresa would not like it?

–Who is Teresa?

–Our sister.

–Our sister? WHAT?

Mrs Crotty told Miss Annie to show Mr Hanafin where the baggage was, and she led him into the back room off the kitchen. There was a lot of noisy fumbling and pulling. The bulk of the baggage could only be explained by having blankets and pillows and other bedclothes tied up, for the wardrobe of the brother and myself was not … well … extensive. Perhaps there were curtains there, too.

At last Mr Hanafin had everything packed away on the roof of the cab. It was summer and the brother and I travelled as we stood. Miss Annie carefully locked the house and she and Mrs Crotty stowed themselves fastidiously in the back seat of the cab, ourselves sitting facing them. The journey was enjoyable, great houses sliding past, trams clanging in the middle of the road, large thickly-made horses hauling heavy drays, and our own Marius making delightful music with her hooves. As I was later to know, our destination was Warrington Place, a rather junior continuation of lordly Herbert Place along the canal on the south side of the great city of Dublin.

Reckoning backwards, I find I was about five years old. The year was 1890, and my young bones told me that a great change was coming in my life. Little did I know just then how big the change. I was about to meet Mr Collopy.

2

THERE is something misleading but not dishonest in this portrait of Mr Collopy. It cannot be truly my impression of him when I first saw him but rather a synthesis of all the thoughts and experiences I had of him over the years, a long look backwards. But I do remember clearly enough that my first glimpse of him was, so to speak, his absence: Mrs Crotty, having knocked imperiously on the door, immediately began rooting in her handbag for the key. It was plain she did not expect the door to be opened.

–There is a clap of rain coming, she remarked to Miss Annie.

–Seemingly, Miss Annie said.

Mrs Crotty opened the door and led us in single file into the front kitchen, semi-basement, Mr Hanafin bringing up the rear with some bags.

He was sitting there at the range in a crooked, collapsed sort of cane armchair, small reddish eyes looking up at us over the rims of steel spectacles, the head bent forward