The next morning, Minogue awoke before the clock radio. Amongst other things, he had dreamed of Agnes McGuire. She was the spitting image of Lady Lavery on the old paper money, sitting there looking out in such a melancholy way at the bearer of legal tender. Maybe she realised that the money was going to be exchanged for pints in a pub. Minogue lay still in the cream-lit morning bedroom. He had his fortnightly appointment with Herlighy, the psychiatrist, this morning. There were birds galore outside. The radio popped on and Kathleen elbowed up to look at him. Then she lay down and held her arm over her eyes.
The news came on after the electronic fanfare. Two RUC men had been killed last night in Belfast. They were plain clothes officers in an unmarked car, apparently following a van. The van doors had been kicked open from inside and too late the two realised that they had been drawn into the figures, history, headlines. Nowhere to hide from an M60 machine gun. The van didn't even stop. It didn't need to. Death on the run, a couple of hundred shells fired off in a matter of seconds. Hardly need to aim it.
Kathleen stirred. Belfast was just up the road really, thought Minogue, a million miles away. In Derry, a rocket-propelled grenade had blown in the w'tall of a garage which housed some city buses. "If it's not American, it's Russian," Minogue murmured. That was psychology, a message, an experiment to show they had got them and it could have been you. Kathleen blessed herself.
"God look down on them and all belonging to them."
And she means it, Minogue knew. At one time she had discounted the death of a British soldier in a gun battle. She had felt there was some fairness in that. He was part of an occupying army. That was back in the early seventies. Minogue agreed with her then, but with a lifetime's practice, had not said so aloud. What could be said now? Gardai had been shot and killed. Whoever had set the mine that day, whoever had tripped the switch had not been indifferent to Detective Sergeant Minogue's fate at all: there was intention there, but nothing personal. It was the Ambassador we were after.
Minogue remembered coming home from the hospital. There were neighbours in, tea and cake and whisky. Everything had been taken care of. It was as if he had just been married, Daithi and Iseult were serious and solicitous. Things had changed. There was new china out on the table. There were new bedspreads and sheets and a bottle of Redbreast in the cabinet below. It was only then that Minogue had realised, quite neutrally as he sat in the deck-chair beside the rhubarb, that he had nearly died. He had prepared a list that day which ran to one hundred and eighty-three items:
4. I will not hate my brother Mick for supporting the IRA.
5. I will not cause Kathleen to worry, so I'll accept the transfer out.
12. I will kiss Daithi and Iseult daily, at least once, even in public.
25. I will accompany Kathleen down the pier as often as she requests.
57. I will continue to be a republican in spite of this.
59. I will visit the National Gallery at least once a week and I will see each painting afresh.
114. I will not lean upon the church.
136. I will live in Dublin as long as Kathleen wants to.
147. I will not treat young people as upstarts
160. I will learn to play Ravel's Pavane on the piano.
Minogue lived again.
"They put me on a case. It's a murder investigation."
Herlighy, the psychiatrist, didn't say anything. Minogue resisted saying more. He let the silence last for a minute.
"To see if I'm serviceable, I suppose. To see if I'm the full round of the clock again. I'm to start this afternoon," Minogue added.
"Can you do it, do you feel?" Herlighy asked.
"Yes. I'm not that leery about it really. They've given me a free hand so far as I can make out," Minogue replied.
It was toward the end of the session. Time had passed quickly for Minogue. He was aware of the hidden expectation that he should talk. That went against his habits and it irritated him frequently. Nonetheless he saw the use of being here.
"And the sleep?" Herlighy asked.
"Oh great. The odd time I wake up early but sure that's normal. If I can use that word. I understand it's not in vogue."
Herlighy smiled briefly.
"You deserve a lot of credit for that, Matt, that you're doing so much," Herlighy said slowly.
Minogue laughed to hide his embarrassment and pleasure.
"Ah sure, time and tide, you know."
"Well, I'm sure you know how much resistance there is to getting proper advice as you have done."
"The wife's idea," Minogue rejoined quickly. "She knows what the score is. She had it herself years ago. I used to think that I should have gone to the sessions with her, you know. I think I was too mad though, and I didn't know it. I shouldn't say mad, I suppose. More like I was raging. Wouldn't listen to anyone. Not much help to Kathleen, I expect, no. But… that's done with."
"The first child?" Herlighy said.
"Yes," Minogue said softly.
Minogue and Herlighy were walking slowly around Merrion Square. They had stepped out from the psychiatrist's office at Minogue's request. They kept to the outer route where the paths were closest to the railings. The railings were quite buried by the shrubs and trees. Merrion Square held its Georgian grace to all four sides. As the two men walked slowly along the path, views of the eighteenth-century houses emerged between the trees. Here a row of windows, ivy cossetting railings which formed balconies on some, there a door at once simple and refined.
As usual, Minogue did the leading. He was walking slower today, Herlighy noticed. Minogue had not hesitated to ask for an 'out' day today. On his first visit to Herlighy's office, Minogue had gazed out the long windows onto the square. He had been surprised when Herlighy had simply asked him at the next session:
"Do you want to go out there? There's no need for us to be in here at all."
Minogue had been amused too, but not suspicious.
"You mean it's all right to be out there? I thought you had to be in a room, like going to confession."
"Interesting idea. No. I find it helps," Herlighy had replied.
Herlighy was still puzzled. On the one hand, Minogue seemed bound up, complete and self-assured all these months. Then he was speculative and yearning, even playful sometimes. Must play hell with him, having to work as a cop: 'unsuited' written all over him.
Minogue seemed to be thriving, despite the trauma after the explosion. Had he been faking it? Why did he seek out these sessions then? What did he want to tell? Herlighy still believed in Minogue's need to confess. Guilt was the motor for this, survivor guilt. There was some other story coming through, like a descant, but still faint however. Some old story in Minogue was starting to talk again.
Herlighy often felt nervous with Minogue. He felt that Minogue was ready to confront something soon. Oddly, he also found himself looking forward to their sessions. He had begun hypnosis with Minogue five sessions back. For a cop, Minogue was neither suspicious nor hostile.
"How's your list coming along?" Herlighy asked.
"Great, so it is. Once you get over the first ten or so, you can't stop. I think I could go on to a thousand," Minogue replied.
"Good," Herlighy said.
"I'm working on a few of them actually, bit by bit. Funny, I have the craving for a smoke again," Minogue added.
They walked on in silence.
"Some of them are hard, but I'm doing all right," Minogue murmured.
Herlighy's eyebrows went up, and he slowed the pace so Minogue would notice.
"With the children, like. I'm more… more: I shouldn't say 'physical.' More direct, like. I always wanted to be. You were definitely right about that, I can tell you," Minogue said.
Herlighy noted Minogue's embarrassment. They resumed their walk, under the trees.
Just after eleven o clock, Agnes McGuire arrived unannounced at the door of Minoifue's office. She stood in the threshold. "I'm Agnes McGuire. You were looking for me." Minogue was taken aback. He stood quickly, his mind alive with details. Her accent carried up the ends of words and phrases and it added what southerners mistook for earnestness. A soft hiss on the s, a changing of vowels.
Agnes McGuire had dark red hair and a pale face. Her eyes had red edges to them. The centres were gentian. Thin hands joined in front of a handknit cardigan. In a sense which shocked him, Minogue abruptly decided that Agnes McGuire was somehow used to grieving.
"Will you sit down please, Miss McGuire?"
"Agnes will do," she said.
"And you can call me Matt if you wish. Agnes, I'll be asking you questions which you may find very trying. I don't need to tell you that we want to get to the bottom of this thing as quickly as possible and although part will be painful to you, I trust you believe that it'll be worth something in the end. Every little thing counts."
"Well, do you think it was a madman who did this, Mr Minogue?" said Agnes.
"Because, to be quite frank, I don't think it was at all. That is what bothers me the most, you know," she continued.
Minogue decided to level with her.
"I can tell you that we don't have much to go on right now. It's not one of those things that results in an arrest within a matter of hours. Do you know how much of this kind of thing is done by another member of the family, a relative, a falling out among friends? This young man's background suggests none of that at all. Unfortunately Jarlath's parents are too distraught to recall a thing with any clarity, but, to be honest, I expect they will have little to offer to help find a resolution. If you follow my reasoning, or should I say, my speculation, I'm thinking of what happened as an event in this area, not just geographically, but in this part of Jarlath's life. College, his life here. Does that sound a bit cracked to you, Agnes?"
Agnes didn't reply immediately. She toyed with her long fingers and then looked to the window.
"I follow you. I didn't want to think like that. Jarlath was not what you might call an extremist." Was she smiling faintly?
"You're saying that Jarlath would not have been involved with radical student politics, whatever they might be?"
"Far from it. Jarlath was always talking about the Enlightenment. That sounds daft, doesn't it? Well, he thought that Irish people had to become more rational, more enterprising about politics."
Minogue said nothing. He waited.
"I suppose it was like a debating club with him really. But it's no sin to be naive. Or is it? Sure, he was laughed at by some of the students here. You know, the 'bourgeois apologist,' the 'light weight' tags here. I think they were jealous of him, do you know that? He had an optimism that they hadn't. I remember one of the sociology crowd telling him that he needed to visit the North once in a while to get to reality, that he needed to get out of his cosy middle class ghetto in Foxrock. It's like the Malone Road, I suppose. You know what was so silly about that? These radicals came from the same backgrounds. They felt they had to be full of thunder and opinions because they felt guilty about being well-to-do."
Minogue believed in wisdom at twenty for he had felt it stirring in himself at that age.
"Jarlath comes across as a gentle type of lad the way you talk," he said quietly.
Had to do it, damn and blast it, thought Minogue. Of course she began to cry and wasn't that the idea, you cruel bastard? When Agnes stopped crying, Minogue asked her:
"Agnes, can you tell me if Jarlath had any notion of drugs?"
"No. He had nothing to do with them. You can be sure of that."
Although Minogue had read the preliminary statements taken from Agnes that Friday, he needed to go back and flesh out the details. Agnes made no protest. She spoke as if reciting. They had both studied in'the library-the 1937 Reading Room-until a bit after eight. They skipped tea-time. Then they went to her rooms where she prepared a meal. Linguini? Strips of pasta. A bit of meat made into a sauce. They had a couple of glasses of wine. They talked a bit, then he left. About half past ten. Did they arrange to meet? Anything out of the ordinary they talked about? No, a plan for a cycling holiday in France. Oh, Jarlath wanted to visit Belfast. Curious? No, she smiled. He had never been there, said he wanted to. Were they thinking of going steady, getting engaged? Pause. No. Did he leave any belongings in her rooms? No, he took everything in his bag. The bag was falling apart, she said. Hmm.
"His school-bag?" asked Minogue, with a slight stir in his stomach.
"No, that was gone. He had it stolen from him. He had to sneak in home with his shopping bag so no one'd see him. The one that was taken was a present from his mother so there'd be wigs on the green if they found out."
"Stolen in college?"
"Right out of his locker, locked and all."
"And did he have valuables in it?"
"Not really. He caught up on the lecture notes by borrowing. Notebooks and bits of things went. A fountain pen he won in debating competition in secondary school. A snap of me." She blushed lightly.
A minute's silence filled the room. It seemed to rest on the grey light which morning had brought to this part of the college. Minogue remembered that it was sunny on the other side of the square when he came in. He felt Agnes willing herself not to cry. He pretended to note things on his sheets. He was thinking of Iseult. Agnes' composure had returned.
"Agnes, if you don't think it's forward of me, may I invite you to come for coffee with me above in Bewley's? I'm allowed some freedom on this case and I intend to sustain myself well. A sticky bun. Maybe we'll risk a large white coffee too, upstairs. If I'm not presuming too much…"
Upstairs in Bewley's the sun roared in the windows, shocking the wood into showing different hues. The newspapers were luminous sheets in the rage of light. From halfway across the room, he could see where an old man hadn't shaved. Minogue didn't ask any more about Jarlath Walsh. Nor did he mention anything about the North. Emboldened by the coffee, Minogue found himself talking with a young woman his daughter's age about the National Gallery and the recitals he planned to go to.
He talked on and on. Agnes looked from him to the sunlit windows and then back. Sometimes she laughed aloud. Minogue, for his part, kept on talking while the sunlight-in its slow and grudging move through Dublin-graced the next table.
Minogue's profligacy with time still allowed him to see Captain Loftus before dinner-time. He climbed the circular staircase slowly, trying to sort out the impressions. History, an alien history, came to him with the lavender smell of floor polish and the echoes of his own footsteps. As he mounted the staircase, his hand rested at times on a varnished banister. Below and to the left of him always, the flagged floor turned lazily with Minogue's ascent.
He knocked and pushed at a heavy door. Loftus turned from a cabinet.
"Ah, Sergeant…"
"Minogue."
"Indeed. Is it me you came to see?"
"To be sure. I was hoping to find out more about that boy's locker. It was broken open some time ago. Do ye keep any reports on such goings-on in the college?" Minogue asked.
"Let me see… "
Loftus opened a drawer and glanced at a document. Minogue worked hard to conceal his humour, or rather his ill humour. He smelled a cloying scent of aftershave off Loftus. Let me see, indeed. Let me see your Aunt Fanny's fat agricultural arse.
"Some three weeks ago, Sergeant. Four lockers were broken open. As a matter of policy we don't trouble the Gardai with these things. Little enough was lost. Notes, someone's rugby shirt, another lad's lunch." Loftus smiled.
"Jarlath Walsh's bag."
Loftus looked back at the sheet.
"Yes, that too. Yes"
"Do you by chance have a list of the items reported stolen, Captain Loftus? Might I see it?"
"No problem," said Loftus.
Must have learned the 'no problem' stuff off the Yanks. Jarlath Walsh, 24 South Park, Foxrock, County Dublin: one leather briefcase, black, containing two notebooks and various lecture notes, mementoes/personal, no cash, pens, pencils, a tape recorder.
"A tape recorder?"
"Apparently so. Mr Walsh likely used it for lectures, I expect."
"What's the usual routine on this stuff, Captain?"
"Eventually compensation. We stress that the college is not liable for damage or theft, but we don't like to leave people hanging. Especially in this case. I had authorised payment to Mr Walsh the day I heard the news."
"Yes. I suspect that the thief used a crowbar or the end of a heavy screwdriver. Determined. You'll understand, Sergeant, that manpower needs preclude constant patrols."
"Dublin isn't what it used to be, is it, Captain?"
"Indeed, Sergeant. The needs must. We do what we can. A person desperate for anything to steal really. A drinking problem. Maybe just vandalism."
Yes, thought Minogue, plenty of that. Drive out by Tallaght in your BMW on the way home to your enclave. You'd probably spend your next few weekends adding glass to the top of your walls.
"Thank you, Captain."
Minogue phoned in a want card on a tape recorder and a black leather briefcase if any citizen should turn it in. Fat chance. He phoned Kilmartin's office.
"Matt, the hard man."
"Jimmy, how are you? Any give on the spot where this Walsh boy was killed?"
"Divil a bit, Matt. The two lads from Pearse Street scoured the college looking all day yesterday. Did you bump into them at all?"
"No."
"Well, the gist of it is that they found nothing. Tell you the truth, I think they're praying for rain so that they have the excuse to give it up. They are wall-eyed after a day of that. The fellas in Pearse Street found nothing on the weekend anyway."
"Hmm…"
"Do you want manpower?"
"No thanks, Jimmy. Slowly but surely. I'll put a few notes together and rocket them over to you."
"Incidentally. Connors is gone to the Walshes to go over things with them. Save you the trouble. He needs the practice in this kind of thing. A bit weak in the shell. Have a look at what he says tomorrow."
Minogue put down the phone. He was glad he didn't have to interview the parents. He thought about Loftus, about how he wanted to show he was running a tight ship. What was he hiding, though? Crossing Front Square toward the room he had been assigned at the college, Minogue passed Mick Roche.
"How'ya, Mick?"
"And yourself, Sergeant?"
"Will you direct me to Dr Allen's place?"
"The headbanger? The psychology fella. Oh yeah, you'll have no trouble finding him. Follow the crowds."
"How do you mean?"
"Just joking. He's a bit of a guru. He has a loyal following, especially in Agnes McGuire."
Minogue followed directions to Allen's office in New Square. Allen greeted him with a tight handshake. He seemed to have expected him.
"Professor Allen. Thank you for your time. I tried to make an appointment but yo, ur line was engaged."
Minogue. examined Allen's face. He was drawn to the eyes. Unbotherable, confident. The eyes rested. on an outdoor face which looked open. A full head of hair, though quite grey. An attractive man to women, Minogue concurred without thinking about it. Allen was dressed casually. He had stepped out of his shoes. His fortyish face smiled in an unsmile, a formal ease.
"I sometimes leave the phone off the hook. Things find me eventually and the more necessary ones will reach me first, I find."
"Sergeant Matt Minogue," and Minogue proffered a hand.
"Not Malone, then. That clears that up," Allen smiled.
They sat. Minogue glanced at the rubbings of figures taken, he guessed, from old stones lying around the ditches of Ireland or from monuments as they were called. These poster-size rubbings were all of whorl patterns.
"They're very nice, Professor Allen. The rubbings. They're hard to do though. I did them as a child."
"Minogue. That's a Clare name, is it not?"
"It is to be sure. And yourself?"
"I'm an Englishman actually. What you hear is an overlay of ten years of being in Ireland, with a heavy foundation of Lancashire."
"You'd never know it."
"More Irish than the Irish themselves you might say, Sergeant."
He had the charm and the small talk too, Minogue reflected.
"Actually, my mother was Irish. An emigrant. Regrettably, she died before she could return for her old age."
"A hard thing to leave go of, the mother country. How well you knew I was from Clare now."
"I do a lot of ethnography, more as a hobby. See this?" Allen pointed to one of the rubbings.
"I got it in West Clare. I went on a dig some years ago in Sardinia and I found a pattern almost identical to this one. A type of mandala. Some people get a bit upset about finding these kinds of similarities, isn't that odd?"
"It is, I suppose," Minogue allowed.
"People don't like to realise that others had the same inspirations or troubles or joys as countless others. Sort of offends against one's sense of uniqueness. Our treasured assumptions about how we control the world."
"You have me there," Minogue murmured.
"It's nothing really. Some of us think that causes and effects are out of our hands. Other people like to think they have more control over things. Illusion really, but it's the belief that counts."
"Superstition, like?"
"In a sense, yes. Look at Americans for instance. They seem to think they can do just about anything. They have a nice, cosy, irrational belief in Progress. Now, Irish people are a bit passive perhaps, but there's history too… Shouldn't generalise really."
"Well you've given me a lot to be thinking about now, Dr Allen," Minogue said thoughtfully.
"I wonder," Allen replied, "I wonder why I'm telling you this. It's not what you're here for, is it? Maybe you have some facility as a seer, drawing out things."
Minogue affected to be surprised. He laughed lightly.
"Ah, I'm a bit pedestrian at the best of times. But continuing on from what you were saying about people believing they can effect things, can I ask you where you'd place Jarlath Walsh there?"
Allen sat back and crossed his legs at the ankles. His forehead moved slightly and his hair moved with it.
"Hmm. Interesting you should ask. Yes. You know of course that what I say is not in the nature of a report. Mr Walsh attended one lecture a week with me. I hardly knew him. I'm not sure why he chose to do this course."
He paused as if to think deeply. "Switched into his official style," Minogue memoed himself.
"I can't say that Mr Walsh was the brightest student in the class. He definitely had an interest in the subject as a whole, but from an essay he wrote me at Christmas I feel that he didn't have the background for attempting what he appeared to be attempting."
"What was that?"
"Well, he was trying to develop a psychology of a typical Irish person, I suppose you would say."
Allen's forehead went up again and he studied his toes. "Let me see if I can explain, Sergeant. Stuff like this might have worked in the last century. No, I should be more charitable about it… Psychology has come a long way from metaphysics in the last century. Mr Walsh wanted to plug in an easy theory into his understanding of Irish politics. He had taken an interest in the violence in the North, of all things. Let's say more than others in the Republic anyway. I suppose he thought there was a simple psychological solution. He was quite emphatic about this. One can understand naive enthusiasm, but Mr Walsh had not moved from this position. There's quite an attraction for people in this stuff about national character. You hear a lot of it. The Russians are supposed to be dour and bearish people who favour despots, or the Irish are charming dodgers. Any good psychology has to account for individual differences as well as commonalities across cultures. Mr Walsh was tempted to reach for what we call Grand Theory." Allen paused. A trace of amusement passed over his face.
"Am I lecturing?" he asked softly, as if taken aback at a great new understanding of himself.
"Not a bit of it," replied Minogue with conviction.
"It may be that Irish people don't feel they can effect any solutions in the North. Pessimism and acceptance. However, one can't be too careful with those wild, huge hypotheses. With Jar-lath Walsh, it was becoming a Pollyanna-ish thing really. Still, he had done a lot of work and he got better than a passing mark."
Minogue was thinking about Agnes McGuire. Maybe she was lying down in her room, thinking of the boy. Perhaps Walsh had been learning something but not something a university could teach. He had found Agnes anyway. Why wouldn't a callow young man believe that some psychology could fix the mess up north? It would have that attractive simplicity, a parallel to feelings which were newly arrived to him with Agnes perhaps, and he could have been swept away with inexperience and optimism.
"I think I see what you mean. Tell me, did you know that Jarlath had a relationship, can I say, with a. student in your class? Agnes McGuire, she's in your class too, am I right?"
"Yes. You may have touched on the chief reason he was in the class in the first place."
Minogue could detect no trace of sarcasm in Allen's voice. As if in answer, Allen said:
"I'm not being flippant or dismissive. Have you spoken with her yet?"
"This very day," Minogue replied.
"Perhaps lecturers are not supposed to notice, but I think Mr Walsh was very taken with her."
"I had the same impression. Like we say though, she's young."
"Ah but Sergeant, years aren't everything. I imagine there was a wealth of difference between her and Mr Walsh. Sometimes the facts, big as they are, escape us."
"In…?"
"Agnes McGuire has lived through a lot, Sergeant."
"Oh yes. Belfast."
"And more," Allen replied, leaning forward in his chair to ruin Minogue's day.
"Her father was a magistrate in Belfast. He was assassinated three years ago."
Minogue felt as if the afternoon had run in a window and fallen on top of him. It wasn't the faint touch of smugness in the delivery that suggested he hadn't done his homework. It was more the thought of Agnes' composure, the control she had. She had had the cruellest practice.
The silence in the room lasted for a full minute.
"Three years."
"I'm Agnes' tutor. We take on groups of students to help and advise them. She was assigned to me alphabetically. My specialty is in the psychology of aggression, of all things. I do public lectures all around Ireland, North and South. Everything's coloured by what happens hf the North, of course. Here I was, sitting across the table from her. I'm trained in various therapy techniques, you see. I expected that she'd be a candidate for help. Given the right suggestions, learning is improved, relationships bloom. I cannot disclose anything of our chats, you'll understand, but let me tell you that Agnes McGuire gives credence to some unfashionable notions. Health, freedom…"
"Strange to think…" Minogue began.
"That she and Walsh could get along? She's Catholic. Her father was killed by Protestant extremists. Isn't that something in itself?"
"I don't follow," Minogue said.
"You'd think they'd leave him alone, wouldn't you? I mean they talk about law and order and enforcing the rule of law when it suits them. The thing was that McGuire was the one who started the process of getting Loyalist paramilitaries behind bars, not just the IRA. I imagine the other side couldn't countenance a Catholic putting away one of theirs, no matter that he was part of the institutions they said they were fighting for."
Minogue said nothing. A whorl of pity eddied down his stomach. No, not pity: regret.
"So much for rationality and politics," Allen said.
"So much indeed," Minogue muttered.
It was beginning to dawn on Minogue that Jarlath Walsh had been naive all right. Still, there was a pedestrian heroism to his ideas. In the end though, what did this all have to do with his getting killed? Ireland entertained a lot of people with the most lunatic ideas. Some were even elected to promote those ideas.
Minogue made to go. Allen's eyes had gone out of focus. They returned to focussing on his feet. Then he looked up at Minogue.
"Sergeant, I last saw Mr Walsh after last Thursday's lecture. That I've told you. I'm not sure if what I'll tell you now has any bearing on your investigations. For some weeks now, Walsh has been asking me privately at the end of the lectures for books on the psychological effects of things like cigarettes, alcohol, narcotics and so on."
Minogue tried to look unconcerned, but apparently it didn't work.
"That shocks you a little, Sergeant?"
"I'm a bit taken aback to be sure. I'm sure that you can understand how one forms an image as one investigates someone's life." Minogue liked the sound of the way he had said that, very neutral and analytical.
"Narcotics. You mean hash and grass basically?"
"I suppose I do," Allen replied with the faintest of smiles. Touche, thought Minogue.
Minogue recalled the bland assurances he had had from college officials about this kind of thing not being on their turf, oh no.
Minogue's mind was tired. He was beginning to feel irritable. He felt uninformed. He hadn't really one promising lead, not a sausage. Intuitions meant nothing, less than nothing, because they deflected his attention. Look: he had spent ten minutes talking about Agnes McGuire. Romancing, he was. Go home to your wife.