He is panicking now. He is sure he has taken his pills this morning. So many of the bloody things, seven in all, but he prides himself on never forgetting them no matter what state he is in when he wakes up. His chest is painful, a bad dose of indigestion; he knows it was stupid of him to have eaten the huge fry for breakfast, but he is never able to resist a fry, particularly when he has a thick head. He winds the window down, struggling for breath. Despite the cold rain that swirls in through the open window, he is sweating heavily. With an effort, he manages to open the door, to swing his feet onto the grass.
        The woman coming towards him is old, he sees she is fierce, that she is not scared of him and he thinks that is a good sign. He makes a huge effort to get out of the seat and he manages it by clinging to the door. By now the ground is spinning, he feels faint, as if he is in another place. He attempts to walk towards the woman and tries to speak to her as he feels another band of red-hot wire clamp itself around his chest and he starts to fall.

        Mrs McGettigan looks forward to Monday mornings. She often chuckles to herself when she thinks about it. How many other people are happy like she is as they flog off to work after the weekend, often with hangovers and full of hatred of their jobs? In her lonely existence on the smallholding, a few miles from the nearest neighbours, with only her chickens and geese for company, it is a great comfort to have a regular visitor every Monday morning. She enjoys the preparations, laying out the rashers and white pudding and sausages alongside the two eggs she cooks for his breakfast each week, and checking her hens have laid enough eggs so she can give him the dozen fresh eggs for himself. It will never be enough to replace Paudie, dead these past twenty years, whom she thinks about for hours every single day since his murder, but she's grateful they look after her so well.
        She straightens up as she comes out of the henhouse into the sudden drenching shower and covers the bowl of eggs that she has gathered with the old coat she wears in the garden, as she hurries back inside her cottage. The warmth of the kitchen is welcome as is the smell of the cakes of soda bread in the oven. She takes them out to test, decides they are ready and puts one to cool in the lean-to beside the kitchen where she grows her tomatoes and herbs. The rain hammers on the Perspex roof but she knows from other days like this it will soon ease off. She hopes so for she always likes to be outside to greet him each week. She prays it is him and not that strap of a wife, a young one with little breeding on her. Mrs McGettigan is convinced she is not good enough at all for him. She cannot understand what he sees in her, either. This weekly visit is good for her in other ways – it makes her clean and tidy the cottage, something she forgets to do, involved as she is with her garden and poultry. She glances up as she hears a car pull into the drive from the road, and is a little put out that he is early. She can feel the panic rising, the fluster she will be in because she has not started to fry his rashers and sausages.
        The car comes to a halt. Through the rain, she peers at the car and thinks it is him, that he is early for once because usually he is late. It pleases her to see he is on his own. Rubbing her hands on her apron, she walks out to him, her old coat pulled over her head as the rain hammers down with an increased ferocity. As she approaches, he makes to open the car door, pushes it with an effort, she thinks, as he struggles to swing his legs to the ground. He stands up, sways, and manages with a great effort to remain upright. For a moment, she thinks he is drunk and he has perhaps fallen asleep in the car after a session somewhere. Is it somebody who is lost and from the looks of him, still drunk? But that can't be him, because she knows he rarely if ever takes a drink.

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