rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the
kettle then to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he took off
the kettle, crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump
of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed
hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won't mouse. Say they
won't eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to her
and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He
sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chipped eggcup.

Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks:
new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's
seaside girls.

The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown

Derby, smiling. Silly Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No,
wait: four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of
folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring.


O, MILLY BLOOM, YOU ARE MY DARLING.
YOU ARE MY LOOKINGGLASS FROM NIGHT TO MORNING.
I'D RATHER HAVE YOU WITHOUT A FARTHING
THAN KATEY KEOGH WITH HER ASS AND GARDEN.


Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous
old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And the
little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the
parlour. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin's hat! All we laughed.
Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.

He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the
teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it?
Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it
upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle.

Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on
the chair by the bedhead.

--What a time you were! she said.

She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on
the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft
bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat's udder. The warmth of
her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea
she poured.

A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the act
of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.

--Who was the letter from? he asked.

Bold hand. Marion.

--O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme.

--What are you singing?

--LA CI DAREM with J. C. Doyle, she said, and LOVE'S OLD SWEET SONG.

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves
next day. Like foul flowerwater.

--Would you like the window open a little?

She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:

--What time is the funeral?

--Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn't see the paper.

Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled
drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a
stocking: rumpled, shiny sole.

--No: that book.

Other stocking. Her petticoat.

--It must have fell down, she said.

He felt here and there. VOGLIO E NON VORREI. Wonder if she pronounces
that right: VOGLIO. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and
lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the
orangekeyed chamberpot.

--Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to ask
you.

She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, having
wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the text
with the hairpin till she reached the word.

--Met him what? he asked.

--Here, she said. What does that mean?

He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail.



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