Free Saints and Sinners by Edna O’Brien

ward," Shane said, and she wondered if he had ever been in one, as he was already in prison when his wife had given birth. Only his wife truly knew him and she was dead.
    Looking then at the stranded microphone, she said it was lucky they hadn't come on a dance night, as she was not a dancer. "Me neither," Shane said.
    "Oh you'd dance if you were made to," the owner said as she hurried in, drying her hands on a tea cloth, and told them about the lovely hunt ball they had had in the winter, people from all around, gentry and farmers and cattle dealers and highwaymen and God knows what.
    "Are we bothering you?" Shane said.
    "Aren't ye what I have been hoping for," she said, and led them across to the long table that stretched almost to the window. When he sat down he smiled. It was the way he smiled that drew people to him, and the owner, quick to recognize it, introduced herself as Wynne and said proudly that theywere in luck because her good-for-nothing husband had caught a salmon and she would poach it, along with potatoes and cabbage. Meanwhile, she said, they should tuck into the drink and she would bring bread to mop it up. There was a slight hitch, as she was inexpert at opening the bottle of wine, which Mona had already ordered. The corkscrew buckled and bits of crumpled cork floated in the pale amber liquid.
    "Just enjoy the view and the rolling countryside," Wynne said, and sallied off muttering what a nice man Shane was and what nice manners and how manners maketh the man.
    "This is nice," he said. He liked the wine, though he was not used to it. She could tell he was not used to it because his eyes became a little foggy, like steam on a kitchen window when pots are boiling over. They could hear Wynne talking to the dozy girl in the kitchen, as their arrival had created a little flurry.
    "Your eyes are the color of tobacco," Mona said.
    "Is that good or bad?" he asked.
    "It's good," she said.
    Turning to Wynne, who had just come in with a loaf of bread, he asked what the room rates were for the night.
    "We could negotiate that," Wynne said, and winked as she toddled off.
    "You're not thinking of staying in this dungeon," Mona said.
    "No one would find me here," he said, gravely.
    "Where will you live, Shane?"
    "Maybe in the west," he said, but vaguely. She pictured him in some cold, isolated cottage, by himself, wrapped in an overcoat, on edge, day and night on the lookout.
    "Do you worry about ... about reprisals?" she asked.
    "I'd be worried for others," he said, and looked at her with such concern, such tenderness, across the reaches of the wide table, the flames from the stout candle guttering in the breeze from the open window.
    "Do you think you'll go back to—"
    "The fight isn't over .. .isn't done," he said, grimly.
    She didn't ask anything further. There were always distances between them, a part of him cut off from her and from everyone. How different the two hims, the young invincible buccaneer and the man sitting opposite her, aging and dredged, everything locked inside him.
    "It's all right," she said, not even sure of what she was saying.
    "It is," he answered, also unsure.
    The poached salmon was a sturdy lump from which the head and tail had been cursorily lopped. The skin, hanging in a long shred, looked like flypaper, and though the outside was cooked nicely, the inside was rawish and around the bone the juices were a pale blood color. Wynne hacked it jubilantly with an old carving knife and conveyed pieces onto Shane's plate with bravado. She then picked up the hot boiled potatoes with her bare hands and filled his plate in her desire to please him. Mona asked for a smaller portion as Shane apologized for the mound he had been given.
    "There'll be jelly and custard, so leave a gap," Wynne said, and went off proudly, humming.
    Very soon after, he listened as if he had heard something that was no longer the bleating lambs, because in the fading light they had gone quieter.
    "What?" Mona