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that had been forced into abnormal contortions. He looks around and then, it seems, straight at me as I stand by the window. I have no alternative but to leave my study and proceed down the long parquet-floored hall towards the dark oak door that separates me from this uninvited guest. I open my heavy door, slowly.
    “Good morning Mr. Middlehoff. I’ve come about the gate.”
    “Good morning Mr. O’Hara.”
    “Good morning Mr. Middlehoff,” he says again. And again, “I’ve come about the gate.”
    The note is abrupt, even peremptory. How am I to respond? This man, whose rather leonine head and large body speak to a slower, calmer nature, is now in a place I recognise and I know the price the terrain exacts. Courtesy, absolute courtesy is now required. It is a balm and today I apply it for my own protection as well as his.
    “Which gate, Mr. O’Hara? Which gate? I’m sorry, Mr. O’Hara, but I do not know to what you refer.”
    “Didn’t your estate manager, Tim, mention it?”
    “No.”
    “I asked him to. You’re sure he didn’t mention it?”
    “I am sure.”
    “Well then I’m sorry. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
    “No?”
    “Do you think I would just turn up at a stranger’s house, Mr. Middlehoff? Just turn up here and ask him for a gate? Is that what you think of us? Is that the kind of people you think we are?”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. O’Hara. This a surprising visit and a most surprising request. As for Tim, he is spending a week in Wexford.”
    “In Wexford?”
    “Yes.”
    “Must be the sister then.”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, well! The gate. The one with the helmet on the top. You know the one: it marks the end of Lake Lane. You brought it here. Took down Edmund Pennington’s old wooden gate.”
    “I know the gate, Mr. O’Hara. It marks the perimeter of my land. So indeed I know the gate.”
    “Of course you do. It’s yours! Well, I want to buy it from you.”
    “You wish to purchase my gate from me? Why?”
    “My son, the lad, admired it. Saw it all the time when he waited in the club rowing boat for the island swimmers to be ready. Gazed at it, told me he made up stories about it. Said it was a warrior’s gate because of the carved helmet at the top. He was at that age. Warriors, heroes, you know.”
    And I remember my last conversation with the boy.
    “I know what you mean and may I again, Mr. O’Hara, express my deepest sympathy to you and your family.”
    “Thank you. Thank you. I’m aware it’s a very strange request.”
    “It is, Mr. O’Hara.”
    “I’ve got it in my head no other gate will do.”
    “That is something that often happens. Will you please come in, Mr. O’Hara? Coffee, perhaps?”
    “Coffee? No, but thank you. We’re not great coffee drinkers here. We don’t want stimulants, you see. We want oblivion.”
    They all talk like this. It’s their gift, their armour. Now he begins to pace around my courtyard.
    “Do you mind if I just stay outside? Keep walking? It helps me.”
    “Not at all.”
    It’s a common reaction in extremis . Mostly people walk in circles. They know there is no escape. As if he reads my thoughts he says, “Walking helps me … movement without escape. Sissy, my wife, wants to escape. I don’t think there’s anywhere to escape to. Leaving the place won’t work.”
    “Ireland is full of towns like this, no?”
    “No. Not for us, Mr. Middlehoff”
    “I see.”
    “Let me ask you, Mr. Middlehoff, did it work for you? Leaving the place?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Well I don’t trust the idea. Living close to what is lost, that’s the only way.”
    “Living close to what is lost? I will remember that, Mr. O’Hara.”
    “Isn’t it too late? For you?”
    There it is! The sudden, assumed intimacy. So quick. So unexpected. I have noted this characteristic before in conversations with them. Close, closer. Then the essential distancing. For protection?
    “In what way?”
    “You left the place.”
    “True. But you