On the way in from the airport the taxi braked suddenly, for no apparent reason. It didn't bother Candide. But the driver seemed worried. "I'd say you could have a touch of whiplash," he said, more than once. "I've a friend a doctor could give you a note about your whiplash injury straight away. He doesn't even want his few bob till the compensation cheque comes through. No? That's a pity."
They drew up at Candide's B&B. "Do you want a receipt for that?" the taxi driver said. Before Candide could explain he wasn't on expenses he went on, "How much will I make it out for?"
"Cead Mile Failte!" the man in the B&B said, taking his bag.
"That'll be £20, if you don't mind paying in advance. I had two couples - Irish, wouldn't you know - scarper this morning without paying." "No problem," Candide said. "Where do I sign the register?" "Don't bother yourself with the oul' register," the host said cheerfully. "Sure what the taxman doesn't know the taxman won't worry about."
Just outside the bedroom window, two young men were sunning themselves on the roof. "We're just off to sign on," one of them called when he saw the owner. "Then we're going for a few scoops. Did you hear anything back from the insurance company yet?" "No problem. They agreed the £800."
"Sure it's not worth their while coming out to inspect for that. So you can give those broken slates back to whoever lent them to you. I'm signing on myself so I won't be here in the morning - and then I have to go down the country to see a fellow about a greyhound. There was a vet's rep here the other day and he gave me a few of the tablets from the North he's flogging to the farmers and they'll have the dog flying. But I'll have the cash for you when I come back."
"Fair enough," said one of the young men. "I've two doing their Communion this year. The wife picked up one outfit in Clery's, even with all the new security there - they've walkie-talkies and all. And your woman up at the Community Welfare Office was in a good mood yesterday and she's subbing us for the other kid's clothes. But I need a few hundred for the party . . ."
Candide decided to go out for a meal. "Hang on there and I'll give you a lift," the B&B man said as he was going through the hall. "I've to go into town myself. I've enough parking tickets to paper a room, but thank God, I've a cousin a detective and he sees me right. I'm just meeting him for a jar in the pub beside the station." He dropped Candide outside the best hotel. Candide sat up at the bar.
He watched the barman dart from customer to cash-register. Sometimes he rang an amount up and slapped the receipt on the counter. Sometimes he rang nothing up. Sometimes he palmed the receipt, as it were absentmindedly.
Behind Candide two women were talking to each other. "They'd reached three no trumps," one of them was saying, "and I could feel that the one who'd opened was thinking of going to slam. When I just happened to look up.
"And what was the other one doing? She was shaking her head!"
A man slid onto the stool beside Candide. "Whew!" he said.
"Paddy" - he called the barman - "give us a large one." He turned to Candide. "I'm in the property business," he said, "and I had a few fellows there on the council that I could - well, trust, like. I mean - development is the name of the game these days and you can't eat green fields. "But there was a bit of a question-mark tonight over one of them. He wanted me to leave the site for a supermarket to him, just for the one vote! Sure a supermarket is big money. I told him I couldn't - that the political boyos have that supermarket site kept for your man that they had to buy off from running for the Dail. I called out to my fella's wife with the usual, before the rezoning vote. But still - it was touch and go."
That night Candide could not sleep. In the morning he went to the chemist and asked for sedatives. "Well, you're only supposed to get those with a prescription," the chemist said. "But I'll give you a few to be going on with.
"You'll have to go to casualty to get more. That's what they all do around here when they want free drugs. The fella from the Health Board that used to give out the medical cards is in drying out, so it is not as easy as it was to get one of them."
Pausing only to swallow a sedative, Candide hurried to the railway station. "Perhaps rural Ireland will be different," he thought. But in the train he fell into conversation with the men sitting opposite.
One explained that he was a trainer, and that he'd just been at the sales and bought a yearling for one of his owners: "£20,000 she was knocked down to us for, in the ring. But I'd my deal well done with the fella that was selling. There's £10,000 of that for the two of us. The owner is too thick to come in out of the rain." The other man laughed appreciatively.
"Fair play to you!" he said. "You see what I have here?" and he brandished a carrier bag. "These are the ear-tags off my cattle. I get them sold in the North and my very good friend sends me back the ear-tags and I put them on the next lot of beasts. The tax-man gets nothing out of me. "But £10,000! That's a good one. Listen, young fella," he said, and he leaned towards Candide. "The brother's in a spot of bother.
"He had a hotel but neither the FFers nor the blueshirts would put the business his way. So he's looking for someone whose face wouldn't be known to maybe help him set a bit of a fire . . ."
Candide waited for no more. Looking neither to right nor left he made for the airport. The last he saw of Ireland was the banner headline on a newspaper. "SHOCK AND DISGUST," it said, "AT HAUGHEY DISHONESTY."