Roger's Trout

The clocks have gone back. It gets dark early these days, and the fog makes it seem even darker. It's good weather for Halloween. When the fog started to clear last night I thought I saw some strange lights in the sky. They could have just been strange stars. One of my neighbours spends his nights observing the strange stars in the sky. Only he can see some of them, and only he can hear what they say. A star called Keith keeps asking him to pass on a message to someone called Jeffrey, but the star won't say who Jeffrey is.

My uncle Cyril often went fishing with a friend of his called Owen. They'd go to a lake and rent a boat for a day. They rarely caught anything worth eating, but one day Owen caught the biggest trout they'd ever seen. He needed Cyril's help to get it into the boat and kill it. They knew they had to take this to the pub near the lake, where the drinkers were always boasting about their catches.

They expected to see awe on the faces of the drinkers when they revealed the trout in the pub, but instead they saw fear. The bar man dropped a glass on the ground. Silence followed the sound of the shattering glass. The bar man broke the silence when he said, "It's Roger's trout!"

"Right," Cyril said. "I hope we haven't offended Roger."

"Roger is long dead," the bar man said, "but his curse lives on. He placed a curse on whoever would catch this fish. Which one of ye is the culprit?"

"Technically, it's both of us," Owen said.

"Then both of ye are cursed. Roger placed the curse in 1904. He respected this trout because it gave him some great racing tips."

"I'm fairly sure trout don't live that long," Cyril said.

"And I suppose you'd be fairly sure they don't give racing tips either, but this one does. Or this one did. There's no doubt that this is Roger's trout."

All of the other people in the pub agreed that this was Roger's favourite fish and that Cyril and Owen were cursed.

The bar man said, "Roger's curses always took on the same form. If you were cursed, you didn't have to worry about an accident coming your way, but you could be sure that your secrets would be revealed. It never failed to happen. People would cross Roger and he'd put a curse on them, and within months everyone would have heard about their hidden crimes, secret past lives or affairs."

Owen laughed nervously. "That's nonsense," he said. "It doesn't even qualify as nonsense. If it arrived at a nonsense convention, the real nonsense would get the security guards to throw it out."

"It never failed," the bar man said.

Cyril said, "How do you know it never failed? All this happened a long time ago."

"My father told me. I don't know who told him, but it wasn't the security guard at a nonsense convention."

"Everyone knows it's true," one of the drinkers at the bar said. "The fear of something like that doesn't fade. When Roger was still alive, anyone who found themselves cursed would go to see him straightaway to get the curse lifted, and they'd do whatever he asked. Even after he died, people would bring curses down on themselves by catching the wrong fish or standing in the wrong place or being happy at the wrong funeral. They'd always go to one of Roger's descendants to get the curse lifted. And that's what ye'll have to do. Ye'll have to go to see Roger's great-grandson. His name is Raymond."

"We'll go there right now," Owen said.

"I thought you said it was nonsense," Cyril said.

"It's very difficult to say what's nonsense and what's not. It changes from minute to minute, depending on how you look at it. One minute you're strolling around a nonsense convention, then you go to get a cup of coffee and when you come back you find you're at a meeting of hair dressers. And the security guard throws you out. When I look at it now, going to Raymond's house seems like the most sensible thing in the world to do."

The bar man gave them directions to Raymond's house. It was an old house on the banks of the lake, just half a mile away from the pub. They went to the house, and when they told Raymond that they needed to get a curse lifted he invited them in. They sat down in his living room and they told him about the fish and what the people in the pub had said.

"They were right about the curse," Raymond said. "There's no doubting that this is the fish. My father used to take me out to visit him. It's a pity ye weren't warned about the curse in advance, but things can be put right. I'll lift the curse, but there will be a small fee."

"Anything," Owen said.

"Three-hundred euros."

"Three-hundred!" Cyril said.

"This is a very specialised service I perform. You won't find anyone else who can do it for you. Some other members of my family might claim they can do it, but they wouldn't do it properly."

"Three-hundred euros is fine," Owen said.

"I'll go and get my coat. We have a short journey to make." Raymond stood up and left the room.

Cyril said to Owen, "This is a scam. Those guys in the pub are probably in on it."

"It might be a scam, but then again it might not. You can't deny that we caught an exceptional fish. This curse thing is possible, and we can't take any chances when it comes to curses."

"Of course we can take chances with curses. It's all superstitious nonsense."

"It might be superstitious nonsense, but it's possible that there's something else in it. If you had a choice between walking under a ladder and not walking under a ladder, you'd choose not to walk under it."

"You wouldn't if you had to pay three-hundred quid to walk around the ladder."

"Forget about the ladder. This is nothing like ladders. This is much worse. This is a curse specifically targeted against whoever catches this particular fish, not seven years bad luck for whoever walks under any ladder anywhere in the world at any time. This is concentrated evil. Look into the eye of that trout and tell me you don't feel a sense of evil directed at us."

Cyril did feel something when he looked into the fish's eye, but he was still reluctant to part with the money. He said, "Just what is it you're trying to hide? Is it a crime, a secret past or an affair?"

"I have nothing to hide."

"Then you won't mind being cursed."

"Everyone has something to hide. No one 'wouldn't mind' being cursed like this."

Raymond returned. They paid him the money and they left the house. He said they were going to the woods on the hill overlooking the lake.

The sun had set by the time they reached the woods. Despite the darkness, Raymond seemed to know where he was going as he walked amongst the trees. Cyril and Owen followed him. Cyril said to Owen, "Is it a secret past life you're trying to hide? You travelled Europe as a magician's assistant called Maisy? Or you used to be the leader of a devil-worshipping cult? You sacrificed animals and burnt down churches?"

"It's nothing like that."

"A crime? Have you ever killed anyone?"

"No. You're in the wrong area entirely."

"An affair?"

Owen remained silent.

"You're having an affair! So who is she?"

"It's Edel."

"That's a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping for something more sensational than you having an affair with Edel."

Raymond led them to a small clearing in the woods. At the centre of the clearing there was a rock. He put the trout on top of the rock and he took a small black book from the pocket of his coat. He read out a few words in Irish, and then he put the book back into his pocket.

"What happens now?" Owen said.

"I'll throw him back into the lake and he'll be right as rain in the morning."

Raymond led them back out of the woods. Just after they had emerged from the trees they saw a man with a shotgun at the edge of the lake. He waved to them, and he started walking towards them. As he got closer they recognised him. It was Fergus, Edel's husband.

"It's the curse!" Owen said.

"How could it be the curse?" Cyril said. "The curse has been lifted, and there was nothing in it about getting shot. The bar man said that all of the people who were cursed would have their secrets revealed."

"Yes, but what if my secret is revealed while he's there to hear it, while he's armed?"

"If your secret is revealed," Raymond said, "it won't be because of the curse. And I really don't think it's a secret anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"He probably knows about what you've been getting up to with his wife."

"Oh God!"

"It's nothing to worry about. You're not the only one she's sleeping with, and he shares her pastime. That's what they do. They're... I'm sure there's some word for what they are."

"Happy?" Owen said.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that. Sometimes they'll share catches."

Owen didn't have time to ask Raymond what he meant by this because Fergus arrived. "This is a very pleasant surprise," he said. "I never expected to see familiar faces here."

"We came here for the fishing," Cyril said.

"I come for the hunting. I have a summer house on the banks of the lake. I insist ye all join me there for a drink."

"Sounds good," Cyril said.

It didn't sound so good to Owen, but he went to the summer house with the others. Raymond threw the trout into the lake on the way.

When they got to the house, Owen was surprised to find that Edel was there too. She was surprised to see him, but pleasantly surprised. When Fergus went to get the drinks, she sat next to Owen on a sofa. Fergus returned with a tray full of glasses, and after he had given the drinks to all of their guests he sat down at the other side of the sofa.

Cyril enjoyed his drink, and it was fun watching Owen's distress as well, but it would be more enjoyable to leave and imagine how much more distressing it would be for Owen when he was left alone with Fergus and Edel. Cyril finished his drink and he said, "I better be off. It's been a long day for me. Stay on for as long as you want, Owen."

"I'll be going as well," Raymond said.

"Wait!" Owen said. "There's something I have to say. This curse has made me dread the revelation of my secret, but I can see now that the fear of the truth coming out is worse than the truth coming out. That's why I want to reveal it right now and get it off my chest. I used to be the leader of a devil-worshipping cult. We sacrificed animals and burnt down churches. While spending time in jail, I saw the error of my ways. I abandoned the cult, and when I got out of jail I tried to build a new life for myself. I'm happy with this new life, but sometimes when there's a full moon I get the urge to put on my robes and sacrifice a sheep in the woods, or I'll see a church and I'll feel like getting sick. That little ceremony with the trout brought back so many memories. Good memories."

Cyril was tempted to tell the truth about this, that Owen was lying to get out of his role as a point in a love triangle, but he said nothing.

Edel stood up. Fergus said, "I better go and take those lamb chops out of the freezer before I forget."

"Perhaps I should be going as well," Owen said.

"It is getting late," Edel said.

After they had left the house, Cyril said, "Lying to get out of that situation was the easy option. I must admit, I'm impressed. You'd have landed yourself in even more trouble if you'd gone for the story about being a magician's assistant called Maisy."

"I never thought I was such a good actor. They didn't doubt that story for a second. Did you see the way they reacted?"

"You were too good an actor. The question you've got to ask now is how good are they at keeping secrets?"

"Oh no!"

"She might tell a friend and say 'Don't tell anyone'. And the friend might tell another friend. 'Don't tell anyone this, but you know yer man who crashed his car into his conservatory...' Everyone will know about your past life."

"It's the curse."

"Don't blame the curse," Raymond said. "You could easily get cursed again for wrongly blaming your troubles on the curse. This is entirely your own fault."

"Isn't there any sort of a curse or a spell you can put on them to keep them quiet?"

"There is, but my services don't come for free."

"I'll pay anything. Anything!"

The moose's head over the fireplace is very impressed by the latest batch of cakes made by the wife's aunt. The ship cakes look more like models of ships. Her helicopter cakes are very detailed. She wanted them to taste like helicopters too. This is why she started tasting helicopters. She says they go very well with cheese.

Buy a Greyhound

It's time to get out the winter clothes again. One of our neighbours decided to make his own clothes this year, just to save money. He's free to make the clothes he can never find in the shops. He believes that the pockets in trousers should be big enough to fit boxing gloves into. He looks strange when the boxing gloves are in his pockets. Most people assume it's a medical condition.

My cousin Hector made a long list of New Year's resolutions one year. The third one on the list was this: do something about the magnetic bees. He'd forgotten about this by the time he started writing the fifty-third resolution, which was: Give the magnetic bees another chance.

When he was reading through the list in November he couldn't remember what 'something' he had in mind for the magnetic bees, but he was fairly sure it wasn't giving them another chance. He used this contradiction as an excuse to abandon the list. The list was inherently flawed, he told himself. He'd just have to wait until the end of December to come up with a new set of resolutions.

But he felt bad about abandoning the list because he abandoned his resolutions every year. He always made too many aims and he never achieved any of them. So he decided to randomly choose one resolution from the list and do his utmost to achieve it. He closed his eyes and used a pen to point out the resolution he'd work on. This is how he chose number forty-one: Buy a greyhound.

He couldn't remember writing this one. It must have been one of those ideas he came up with after a night in the pub. It would seem like a great idea at the time. He'd wonder why he'd never thought of this great idea before, and very often he'd never think of it again.

When he was in the pub later that evening he told his friends, Steve and Sean, about his resolution. Sean said he had always wanted to buy a greyhound. A friend of his breeds them. Steve was interested in greyhounds as well, and the three of them agreed to join together to buy a dog.

The greyhound they bought was called 'Jimbelsterry'. He was quick, but he wasn't very well-behaved. He'd run like lightning to an open door if he thought he could get inside and ruin new furniture. They hired a trainer, but they didn't like the way he kept scratching himself, so they fired him. He didn't like the way Steve said 'You're fired', and he used his scratching finger to express his feelings in a gesture, but it didn't have the desired effect because Steve found it less offensive than the scratching.

They considered training the dog themselves, but they didn't know where to start. As they were considering the problem in the pub, the bar man told them about his aunt Evelyn, who can communicate telepathically with dogs.

They took the dog to see her. She spent an hour looking into his eyes, and after this his behaviour was greatly improved.

They were very confident going into his first race, but on the morning of the race he was lifeless, and he didn't show much interest in his food. He looked depressed. They took him to see Evelyn, but she was depressed as well. They realised that her telepathic relationship with the dog was stronger than they had thought. The dog was depressed because she was depressed.

When they asked her what was wrong she told them about how herself and her friend, Agnes, had written and directed a sketch for a variety show in the village hall that evening. But the organiser of the show, Mrs. Thrombelays, had decided to axe the sketch at the last minute. She said they needed more time for the school kids' song and dance routine. According to Evelyn, they only needed more time because they were moving so slowly.

Hector, Steve and Sean knew that they had to get the sketch reinstated to restore the spirits of Evelyn and of Jimbelsterry. If they failed, their dog wouldn't stand a chance in the race that evening. So they went to see Mrs. Thrombelays and they asked her if she'd consider putting it back. "Absolutely not," she said. "I'm delighted to be rid of the thing. It's set in a knitting club. All of the jokes are about knitting, and only people who are into knitting would get them."

If Mrs. Thrombelays wouldn't willingly reinstate the sketch they needed some other way to twist her arm. They could try paying her, but they were hoping to find a cheaper way of doing it. Sean suggested getting dirt on her.

"What exactly do you mean by dirt?" Hector said.

"Some stain on her supposedly blemish-free reputation. A stain she's tried to cover."

"Where would you find something like that?"

"Her bin would be the best place to start. Where better to find dirt?"

She'd be busy at the village hall all day, so they had a chance to look in her bin without being noticed. The bin was behind the shed behind her house. They got into her garden over a wall at the back. Hector opened the bin and they looked into it. They were very surprised by what they found there. "This is even tidier than your house," Steve said to Sean. "Some of the rubbish is folded."

"There isn't much likelihood of finding any sort of dirt in here," Hector said.

A man looked over the hedge. He was a neighbour of Mrs. Thrombelays. "I couldn't help overhearing a mention of dirt," he said.

"Yes," Hector said. "That's what we're looking for. But not the sort of dirt you'd normally find in a bin. You wouldn't even find that sort of dirt in this bin."

"I think I might be able to help ye out. When I was playing soccer in the back garden with my nephews one evening the ball went into Mrs. Thrombelays' garden. I went through a gap in the hedge to get it back. While I was in there I couldn't help noticing something strange going on in her house. She was performing a puppet show. 'That's strange,' I said to myself. I moved a bit closer to the window to get a closer look, and the closer I got the stranger it seemed, until it wasn't strange any more. It was something else. The puppets weren't wearing any clothes. If this show had been filmed, you'd have to be over eighteen to see it. Is that the sort of dirt ye're looking for?"

"I think that should do the job," Hector said.

They went to see Mrs. Thrombelays and they told her their idea for a puppet show. They wanted her to include it in the variety show. She could drop the kids' song and dance routine to make room for the puppets. The kids would have to be dropped because they'd be too young to see the puppets. Mrs. Thrombelays said she didn't think that would be a very good idea. They said that they might have to put on the show outside the hall instead, unless she agreed to reinstate the comedy sketch. If she had developed a telepathic connection with a dog, that dog would have been hiding in its kennel at that time.

Evelyn was delighted when she heard that Mrs. Thrombelays had changed her mind about the sketch, and the dog seemed as happy as he had ever been. He won his first race that evening. He seemed very excited after he crossed the finishing line. This was partly due to the fact that at the same time, the people in the audience at the village hall were giving a standing ovation to the sketch written by Evelyn and Agnes.

The dog won his next three races, but they sold him because they were spending too much time making sure that Evelyn was happy on the day of the race. Blackmailing people lost its appeal after the novelty wore off, and not all bins were as pleasant as Mrs. Thrombelays'. They preferred spending time doing nothing, and with the profit they made from the sale of the dog they had plenty money to spend on this activity, or lack of activity.

The moose's head over the fireplace is reading the travel book written by my grandfather. It describes his journey all around Europe. I was surprised to find that he'd ever left the locality. In the book he wrote about the strong men in Norway who'd squeeze glue out of a whale before throwing the whale back into the sea. Of course, there's no guarantee that he was ever actually in Norway. He spent a lot of time in the shed, gluing spoons together.

Audrey's Cakes

Birds, animals and trees are getting ready for winter. My great-grandfather kept a journal to record his observations of these preparations for winter. Every year he'd see squirrels collecting feathers to build a set of wings. They were hoping to fly south, but they never got far.

My cousin Ronan loves eating cake. His girlfriend, Audrey, loves baking cake. This should be one of those coincidences that works out well for both of them, the icing on the cake of their relationship, but Ronan doesn't like most of the cakes she bakes. He likes simple cakes with thick layers of icing or chocolate, cakes that are obviously bad for him. She started making the cakes unnecessarily complex, experimenting with strange ingredients, and doing her best to make something that would be healthy to eat. Ronan believes that it's wrong to make a cake that's good for you. You have all the time when you aren't eating cake to devote to being healthy and depressed. Eating cake is meant to be a way of taking a break from that.

She created a cake that had honey, cream and icing. He hated it. The taste wasn't all that bad, but a cake with honey, cream and icing should have tasted great. The other ingredients were fighting the honey, cream and icing, punishing them for tasting so good, even if they had some health benefits. Being bland and healthy was better than being interesting and healthy, and much better than being interesting and unhealthy. Many of Audrey's friends clearly believed this. She told him that some of her friends loved her latest cake. He noticed that it was the mad ones who said they loved it. He suggested that she should market it as a cake that mad people would love. She ignored this advice and she chose to market it as a cake made by grandmothers (the label had a drawing of an old woman who had a grandmotherly look). A local shop agreed to sell some of these cakes, and they proved to be hugely popular. She started selling them from a stall at a market held every Saturday morning. She sold all of her cakes on the first morning. On the following week she had sold them all within twenty minutes. This confirmed Ronan's belief that most people were mad.

A man called Gerry sold cakes from another stall in the market. He offered Audrey a thousand euros for the recipe to her cake. She politely declined the offer. This didn't surprise Ronan because he already knew that she was mad. A monk told her that they were organising a fete in the monastery on the following Saturday to raise money for charity, and they wanted to order some of her cakes for that. It was no surprise when Audrey insisted that she'd make the cakes for free, but Ronan was annoyed when she said that herself and Ronan would be glad to help at the fete. If he had to do it, he'd rather they knew that he wasn't doing it gladly. The monks told her she could use the ovens in their kitchen on the morning of the fete. She'd be able to make many more cakes in these, with Ronan's assistance.

They started baking at eight o' clock in the morning. They put the final batch into the ovens at ten, and then they went outside to help set up some of the tables. They met Lucy and Hilda, two of Audrey's friends who had also volunteered to help at the fete. They were glad to let it be known that they were doing it gladly, but they were mad. When they went back to the kitchen to take the cakes out of the ovens it didn't take long for Audrey to notice that something was wrong. Her recipe book was gone. At first the others thought she must have misplaced it, but then Lucy remembered seeing Gerry outside and he was looking furtive. He must have stolen the book. Lucy and Hilda regarded it as a crime against the poor defenceless cakes, and they couldn't comprehend how anyone would do such a thing in a monastery.

They went out to look for Gerry. They saw him on the lawn, and he saw them seeing him. He ran in through the nearest open door and they followed him. They chased him down stone corridors under vaulted ceilings, up and down steps and through prayer rooms, their echoing footsteps shattering the silence. He went into the church through the front door. They followed him shortly afterwards, but Gerry was nowhere to be seen. "He must have gone out through the side door," Audrey said.

Gerry heard Audrey's voice from the safety of a confession box. He heard the footsteps on the floor as his pursuers made their way to the side door, and then silence after they'd gone. He smiled. He liked it in there, and he was looking forward to staying there for a few hours while they were looking for him outside. But his plan went awry when a monk came into the other side of the confession box. Gerry blessed himself and said, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

He didn't know what to say after this. The monk broke the silence when he said, "Is there anything in particular you'd like to tell me?" Gerry remained silent. "Some act you've committed that you now regret?" the monk said. "Something you might have done a long time ago?... Or very recently?... A crime, perhaps?"

Gerry cracked. "I didn't mean to do it," he said. "But I found myself in a position where I could do it and somehow I couldn't resist doing it."

"You need to tell me what it is before I can grant you absolution."

"When I was ten I ruined my aunt's wedding cake. My mother was icing the cake, and when she went to answer the phone I came across it in the kitchen with a bowl of icing. I couldn't resist trying it out, and I really enjoyed it. I found that I had a flair for it. I wrote words all over it, words that a ten-year-old would find funny, but no one else would. My brother ended up getting the blame for it. I've always felt guilty about that. You might well ask how I ended up making cakes for a living..."

Gerry spent the next ten minutes talking about the psychology of making cakes, but he stopped talking when he heard the monk leave the confession box. The door at his side was opened and the 'monk' standing there was actually Ronan.

"Shut up about the cakes," Ronan said "Just give me the recipe book."

"I will not," Gerry said. "I mean, I don't have it. Pretending to be a monk to hear someone's confession is about as low as you can go in my book."

"I don't think monks even hear confession. Did that not cross your mind? Being stupid enough to fall for a trick like that is about as low as you can go in my book. Of course, not everyone would agree with me on that. A lot of people would say that you can't sink much lower than ruining your aunt's wedding cake and blaming your brother. I might have to ask the opinion of a lot of people just to be sure. Unless you return the book."

Gerry took the recipe book from inside his jacket and he gave it to Ronan.

"Thanks," Ronan said. "I couldn't care less about the book myself. I might need something I care about to stop me talking. Something resembling a monetary contribution, maybe? Something in the region of a hundred euros?"

Ronan heard a cough behind him. He turned around and he saw a monk standing there, looking disappointed. Ronan couldn't look him in the eye. "I got the book back," he said. "And I was just, ah... having a chat about... things like..."

Audrey, Lucy and Hilda arrived in the church. Audrey was delighted when she saw her recipe book. She kissed Ronan and thanked him for getting it back. Ronan was glad to see her because he thought she'd rescued him from having to explain himself to the monk, but it didn't work out like that. "You were saying something about a chat?" the monk said.

"Yes," Ronan said. "We were having a chat. As I was saying, I thought it might be best if, y' know... I made a sort of a... what you might call a 'monetary contribution' to this charity thing. Something in the region of a hundred euros."

"How wonderful," the monk said. "God never ceases to surprise me with the mysterious ways in which he works."

The moose's head over the fireplace appreciates the aesthetic quality of the cakes made by the wife's aunt. They could easily pass as pieces of sculpture. She bakes cakes to use up all the butter she buys. When she leaves the butter out overnight it begins to take on the form of a tiny person, and it looks as if that person is trying to get away. This is why she talks to butter. There's no particular reason why she talks to jam or to cupboards. She thinks the butter people enjoy their afterlife in one of her cakes, but she doesn't know how they feel about the life after that. They certainly taste good.

After Sunset

The days are getting shorter. I'm trying to appreciate as much of the evening light as I can. I look out over the fields as the sun sets each evening. Just after the sun goes down I always see a black horse running through the field behind the garden. He disappears when he gets to the ditch. This field has always been strange. In the sixties, clowns from all over the country were drawn there. If they stayed for long enough they'd start levitating. The farmer used swans to get rid of them.

My cousin Albert once got a summer job on a building site. He was the security guard at night, but he wasn't there to keep the thieves away. Cats would colonise the scaffolding if you left it unattended overnight. Albert's job was to keep the cats away.

He thought it would be easy, but it was nerve-wracking. The cats would arrive at the site shortly after the sun went down. They'd sit around the edges of the site and wait. Within an hour, hundreds of cats would be waiting for him to let his guard down. By the third night his nerves were shattered. He thought about taking up art to relax. He could paint the rivers he'd seen on Mars. Then he wondered if he really had seen rivers on Mars. Perhaps he'd seen them in Longford or in Roscommon. He thought he must be going mad if he believed he'd been to Longford or Roscommon.

He was just about to abandon the site when a woman arrived. She said her name was Holly. She lived near the building site and she'd seen many guards go mad. She told him he should let the cats onto the scaffolding because she knew how to get rid of them in the morning. He agreed because he had to get away.

They left the site. He didn't look back as the cats took their chance to occupy the unguarded scaffolding. She told him she'd take him to a pub that never closes. She led him down narrow alleys in the city. She opened an unmarked door at the end of a dead-end street, and they climbed a narrow stairs. They came to a corridor with lots of doors, all of them painted blue. The pub was behind one of them. She put her ear to each door to listen to what was going on inside. She decided that the ninth door was the one she was looking for, and she was right. She opened the door and they went into the pub. This wasn't like any of the pubs he normally went to. A pianist sat at a grand piano. Hundreds of small lights hung from the ceiling. It looked like the sort of pub where drunks wouldn't be welcome. 'The more drunks the merrier' was the attitude in most of the pubs he went to, even though the drunks were more likely to spread depression rather than merriment.

They ordered drinks at the bar. They sat down at a table and the waiter brought their drinks. Another waiter brought cakes. A woman stood next to the grand piano and sang in French. Holly translated the song for Gary. She said it was about eating the sea and having to add salt to it.

He told her he was very grateful to her for getting him away from the cats. "They'd drive you mad," he said. "They knew that I would have cracked before they did. That's why they were quite content to just sit there staring at me, their inner Cheshire cats grinning. I'm sure they rehearsed the purring in advance. It was like an orchestra playing a piece that was building to a crescendo. I would have lost my mind before they got there."

"It sounds like I rescued you just in time."

"You did. If there's anything I can do for you, just name it."

"Actually, there is something you might be able to help me with."

"I'll do my best."

She told Albert about her friend Ron. He's tall and proud and he prides himself on being right more often than he's wrong. He prides himself on being able to admit when he's wrong. He's able to admit when he's right as well. Sometimes he gets things wrong because of his impatience, which he also prides himself on. He'll buzz in before the question is finished, before the course of the question changes to point towards a different answer. In practical terms, this means that he falls through unsafe floors a lot, more often than the average man. He prides himself on being either above or below the average man (very often below because of his habit of falling through floors).

Julianne is rarely wrong and hardly ever right. She remains silent most of the time. Ron hears this silence as beautiful music when it's played by her expressionless face. Other people's silences sound like fingernails on the blackboard. She can create a pregnant pause that would make you applaud. He's afraid of impregnating one of her pauses in case the child is ugly. This happened when he told her about what he did to his foot. Julianne didn't respond to this, but her facial expression altered slightly. She never says much. This is of little consequence. Other things of little consequence include: the way she moves her finger around in a circle when she points at things and says 'thingy' (she did this when she was trying to think of an instrument you'd use to measure wind speed, and on another occasion she did it when she was trying to remember the name 'Roald Dahl'); the way he lifts things when he's trying to impress people (he tried to lift a big dog to impress Julianne); the way geese don't like him.

This is something of great consequence: Julianne was once asked to design a poster advertising a Christmas party at a golf club. She asked Holly if she had any ideas. Holly suggested using an image of a golfer on the course, with Santa acting as his caddy (the clubs would be in Santa's sack). Julianne used this idea, and she told everyone that she had thought of it herself. This is why Holly didn't trust Julianne.

Over the previous few weeks, Ron had been going somewhere with Julianne late at night. Holly had seen them walking in front of her apartment building just before midnight. He denied going anywhere with Julianne when Holly asked him about it. They were clearly up to something, and Holly was determined to find out what it was. She didn't want to follow them through the city streets at night on her own, so she asked Albert if he'd go with her. He said he would.

They went back to her apartment. They sat in front of the window and looked down on the street below. They saw Ron and Julianne walking by ten minutes before midnight. Albert and Holly went downstairs and followed them.

Ron and Julianne went to an old house on the edge of town. A man was guarding the front door, but he stood to one side to let Ron and Julianne in. He didn't say a word to them. Holly didn't think it was likely that this man would let herself and Albert in so easily. They needed to get rid of the guard. She got out a tin whistle and she played a short tune on it. Shortly afterwards, the cats started arriving. Within a minute there were over thirty cats sitting in front of the guard, staring at him. It only took another minute for him to crack and run away. Albert and Holly went into the building.

There was a wide hall inside the door. The doors at either side of the hall were locked, so they climbed the stairs. They came to a dimly-lit corridor, with doors on either side. Holly listened at each door, just like she had done when she was trying to find the pub. She had a feeling that the fourth door was the right one. She opened it as quietly as she could.

Inside there was a huge room. There was a round table in the centre of the room, and twelve people sat around the table. The only light came from a candle in the centre of the table. Ron and Julianne were amongst the twelve. All of the people at the table had their eyes closed. Albert and Holly could see that a seance was in progress.

Albert and Holly moved around the edge of the room as the medium tried to make contact with a spirit. It seemed her efforts were successful when they heard a loud booming voice. It was a man who said, "Is there anybody there?"

"Yes!" the medium said. "We're here. I knew you'd come, Norman. Talk to us, please. Tell us the news we're looking for."

Albert and Holly stopped moving as soon as they heard the voice. They found themselves leaning against a door, and they could hear that voice coming from the other side of the door. Holly opened it. The room at the other side was dark, but they were just about able to make out a man talking into a microphone. This was Norman. He said, "Excuse me one minute," and he put down the microphone.

Albert and Holly stepped into the room and closed the door. Outside they could hear the medium asking the spirit Norman if something was wrong. The real Normal asked Albert and Holly not to give the game away. "She'll kill me if this goes wrong," he said. "And then she'll try to make contact with my spirit to tell me how useless I am. Of course, there's little chance of her succeeding in making contact with my spirit."

"We won't give the game away," Holly said, "as long as you do me a favour."

She told him what she wanted him to do and he agreed. He picked up the microphone again and the spirit Norman resumed his report from beyond the grave. After he'd finished reading fictitious messages from deceased grandparents and famous ancestors he said, "And stop stealing other people's ideas for posters advertising Christmas parties at golf clubs."

They heard a scream outside, and then the sound of a door opening as Julianne fled the room.

Norman let Albert and Holly out through a back door. They returned to the pub, and they had a few more drinks as they listened to the music. At six o' clock in the morning they went back to the building site. The scaffolding was almost invisible beneath the cats, but they didn't stay for much longer. Holly got out the tin whistle and played another tune. All the cats had fled by the time she'd finished it.

The moose's head over the fireplace understands French. I don't know where he learnt the language. The wife's uncle talks in French to him, telling all the stories not fit for English. Even the moose's head looks shocked at some of them. The wife's uncle learnt French to impress women, and it worked too, although it was never successful on French women. He used to speak Irish to them. He says that problems in relationships only arise when people understand each other.