Timothy John Sinnott

In another suburb, in Booterstown, Philomena, wife of Eugene and daughter-in-law of Mrs Sinnott, fried rashers and eggs in the kitchen of a bungalow. In contrast to Mrs Gregan, who was tall and grey and square-faced, Philomena was a tiny woman, with hair that was as black as ever it had been and with chestnut-brown eyes in an olive face.

‘Don’t forget now,’ Philomena said to her son, for whom she was cooking the food, ‘you have to go to the dentist.’

He, shaved and cleanly-attired, sat waiting at the kitchen table: Timothy John, twenty-eight, whose face, set in a narrow head unlike either of his parents’, at once suggested his timid nature. The day would be the same as other days, he reflected as he waited, except that an electric drill would grind into one of his teeth.

She placed a warm plate containing eggs and rashers before him.

‘Have you thought of birthday present?’ she said.

‘I’ll get a tray-cloth.’

‘That’s nice. Eat up now. Don’t be late.’

‘I won’t be late, Mother.’

She smiled and he tried to smile back, ashamed of not being able to stop thinking about the probing of instruments and the sudden striking of a nerve, and ashamed as well of being afraid to tell her that for too many years he had found her love oppressive.