All. With envy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily.

Their likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets tittering in the struggle.

Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge.

The words troubled their gaze.

How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river.

For Haines’s chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a clement master’s praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly for the smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other too often heard, their land a pawnshop.