Brothers

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Jim O’Connor was enjoying himself. He hadn’t eaten much tonight, not compared with what he’d shifted back in his rugby days. He’d had a couple of glasses of burgundy with his sirloin, but his head was perfectly clear. He didn’t want to get drunk, because he wanted to enjoy the evening. That meant having all your senses alert and missing nothing of what was going on around you. He had a speech to make, too, but he was trying not to think too much about that.

He could see everything in the room from his position at the centre of the top table. He wasn’t talking very much, because he was in a reflective mood. Some people probably said he was self-satisfied, but he didn’t have to consider what other people might say nowadays. And you were allowed to savour what you’d achieved. Surely that was permissible on an occasion like this. He’d come a long way from the Irish village where he’d started. It was surely only right to pause once in a while and consider what he’d achieved.

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