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.
