‘Oh…’ The girl’s expression changed, as if suddenly she wanted to be somewhere else. I couldn’t blame her: she was just a girl looking for a good time, for fun, and the pony she had backed had turned out lame.
‘She was sick and I didn’t know it,’ I explained and could hear something like pleading in my own voice. ‘You see, all those times she went with him — all those times I thought she was with him… The hospital. He was taking her to the hospital and it should have been me taking her. She didn’t want me to know. I got it all wrong. All wrong.’
I took the letter from my pocket and stared at it, a crumpled ball in my hand. I felt my face wet.
I sat for a while saying nothing and when I next looked the girl was gone. I stuffed the letter back in my pocket, went through to the public bar and drank some more, a lot more.
Then, in the best Celtic tradition, I looked around for someone to fight.
