'Ah, but, yes, sit down there, Father, do, now,' he said, nearly advancing on the unsmiling priest, as if to knock him back into the chair. But Fr Gaunt sat down steady as a dancer.

I knew my mother was in the hallway, in that little gap of privacy and silence. I stood at my father's right side like a watchman, like a sentry against the storm of an attack. My head was filled with some unknown darkness, I couldn't think, I couldn't continue that long conversation we make in our heads, as if an angel were writing there unbeknownst.

'Hmm,' said my father. 'We'll make tea, how about that?' he said. 'Yes, we will. Cissy, Cissy, will you heat the kettle, dear, do.'

'I drink so much tea,' said the priest, 'it's a wonder my skin doesn't turn brown.'

My father laughed.

'I'm sure you do, out of a sense of duty. But no need in my house. No need. I, that owe everything in the world to you, everything in the world. Not that, not that -'

And here my father floundered, and blushed, and I blushed too I dare say, for reasons I could not understand.

The priest cleared his throat, and smiled.

'I will take a cup of tea, of course I will.'

'Ah, well, that's good, that's good,' and already we could hear my mother scraping about in the pantry down the corridor.

'It is so cold today,' said the priest, rubbing his hands suddenly, 'that I am very relieved to be near a fire, now, I am. It is so frosty along the river. Do you think', he said, drawing out a silver case, 'I might smoke?'

'Oh, fire away,' said my father.

The priest now drew his box of Swan matches from his soutane, and a funny oblong-shaped cigarette from the case, struck the match with a beautiful precision and neatness, and drew in the flame with his breath through the crisp tube. Then he exhaled and gave a little cough.

'The – the,' said the priest, 'the position in the graveyard as you can well imagine is not – tenable. Em?'

He gave another elegant pull on the cigarette, adding: 'I am afraid to say, Joe. I dislike this fact as I am sure you dislike it. But I am sure you will appreciate the – the great cloud of dust that has descended on my head, between the bishop, who believes all the renegades must be excommunicated, as was decided at the recent synod, and the mayor, who as you may be aware is very much against the treaty as it stands, and as the most influential man in Sligo carries great – influence. As you can imagine, Joe.'

'Oh,' said my father.

'Yes.'

Now the priest went a third time at the cigarette and found he already had quite an ash to deal with and in that silent dumbshow of smokers looked about for an ashtray, an item that did not exist in our house, even for visitors. My father astonished me by putting out his hand to the priest, admittedly a hard hand coarsened by digging, and Fr Gaunt astonished me by immediately flicking the ash into the offered hand, which perhaps flinched tinily for a moment when the heat hit it. My father, left with the ash, looked about almost foolishly, as if there might have been an ashtray put in the room after all, without his knowledge, and then, with horrible solemnity, pocketed it.

'Hmm,' said my father. 'Yes, I can imagine there is a difficulty to reconcile those two poles.' He spoke the words so gently.

'I have of course looked about, especially in the town hall, for an alternative occupation, and if at first this seemed an impossible – em, possibility – then, when I was just about to give up, the mayor's secretary, Mr Dolan, told me there was a job on offer, in fact, they had been trying to fill it some time past, with some urgency, due to the veritable plague of rats that has been bedevilling the warehouses on the riverside. Finisglen as you know is a very salubrious district, the doctor himself lives there, and unfortunately the docks abut it, as of course you know, as everyone knows.'

Now I could write a little book on the nature of human silences, their uses and occasions, but the silence that my father offered to this speech was very dreadful. It was a silence like a hole with a sucking wind in it. He blushed further, which brought his face to crimson, like the victim of an attack.

At this moment my mother entered with the tea, looking like a servant among kings, you would think, afraid perhaps to look at my father, so keeping her eyes on the little tray with its painted scene of some French field of poppies. I had often gazed at that tray where it lived on the top of the dresser in the pantry, and imagined I could see a wind blowing along the flowers, and wondered what it was like in that world of heat and dark language.

'So,' said the priest, 'I am happy to offer you, in the name of the mayor Mr Salmon, em, the eh – post. Job.'

'Of?' said my father.

'Of,' said the priest.

'What?' said my mother, probably against her better intentions, the word just popping into the room. 'Rat-catcher,' said the priest.

It fell to me, I know not why, to bring the priest to the door. On the narrow pavement, with the chill gathering about him, creeping no doubt up his soutane along his bare legs, the little priest said:

'Please, tell your father, Roseanne, that all the accoutrements of the trade are at the town hall. Traps, et cetera, I suppose. That's where he'll find them.'

'Thank you,' I said.

Then he started off down the street, stopped a moment. I don't know why I stayed there watching him. He took off one of his black shoes, leaning a hand on the brick wall of our neighbour's house, then balanced on one foot, feeling the underside of his sock for whatever hindered his walk, a pebble or piece of grit. Then he unhitched the sock from its gaiter, and removed it in a smooth sweep, revealing a long white foot with the toenails rather yellow like old teeth, folding back on his toes, as if they had never been cut. Then he spotted me with my eyes still on him, and laughed, and having routed out the offending stone, put back his sock and his shoe, and stood there solidly on the pavement.

'Such a relief,' he said pleasantly. 'Good day. And,' he said, 'now I think of it, there is also a dog. A dog attached to the job. For ratting.'

When I went back into the sitting room my father had not moved. The motorbike had not moved. The piano had not moved. My father looked like he would never move again. My mother I heard scratching about in the pantry, very like a rat. Or a little dog looking for a rat.

'Do you know anything about that job, Dadda?' I said.

'Do I – oh, I suppose.'

'You won't find it so hard.'

'No, no, because I have often had to deal with such things at the cemetery. The rats do love the soft soil on the graves, and the gravestones make such good roofs for them. Yes, I have had to deal with them. I will have to study the matter. Perhaps there will be a manual in the library.'

'A rat-catcher's manual?' I said.

'Yes, don't you think, Roseanne?'

'I am sure, Dadda.'

'Oh, yes.