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What are you going to do? she asked He kissed her hand, and said nothing

59 Ferry tickets; handwritten letter; route map (from website); all June 2000

It wasn't yet light when the ferry arrived He stood out on the deck, his eyes stinging with sleep in the cold wetair He looked out over the warehouses and lorry-parks, tracing the light-strung line of the motorway as it skirted around Belfast and headed towards the Lough There was a love compartment, but he kneouldn't need theainst the jetty wall: M2 towards the airport, past Antrih Londonderry, across the border

I'o, and she'd nodded and said right then, okay, okay I've been in touch with a woently as it was possible to say such a thing, her maiden naht then, okay, okay, turning her face away froain how , the veins of her neck swollen behind the skin like knotted cords, the backs of her hands arching at the knuckle

They'd been driving for an hour when he saw the first flag, a worn-looking union flag hanging fr

oraph pole, and he remembered how very many more there had been the last tis and a half-dozen tricolours, no h theaway to their left as they cliher Muddy-footed sheep scrambled away from the side of the road as they passed He asked Eleanor how she was feeling, but she was asleep, or trying to be, and before he'd even noticed how far they'd co Londonderry, across the bridge and out along the wooded road on the other side

They were almost twenty miles into Irish territory before he realised they'd crossed the border, that they'd long since passed the spot where once there had been concrete blocks and tall steel fences, razor wire, soldiers with loaded guns and crackling radios; now there was nothing except a gravelled change in the texture of the road They stopped in a lay-by for sandwiches and coffee and pieces of foil-wrapped cake, looking down over the long narrow bays of the inner coastline, the still grey water glinting in the strengthening light Eleanor stretched, arching her back and lifting her face, and leant against David's shoulder

All this sitting down's no good for an old body, she said, rubbing the sides of her legs and bending her knees

Well, David said, you're not that used to it Maybe you should go for a run before we go any further, he joked, get the blood hed sarcastically and then turned to face him

Do you think I look old though? she asked She lifted her hand to her hair; I rey hair now?

He smiled, and looked away, and said I don't know, hts, he said, s the last of the coffee around in the botto the dregs on to the ground She watched the shadows of s across the hillside on the other side of the narrow bay They both stood still for aanything

It doesn't see since I was here before, he said She pressed closer against him

It's more than twenty years, she said Kate was only three

I know, he said A lorry roared and clattered past, and they turned away frorit thrown up in its wake

Where does it all go? Eleanor said I don't feel old enough to have a daughter in her twenties already He slipped his ar her round to face hi, really