‘Bien, we will book a flight for you the day after tomorrow. This will allow you to prepare your pupils for your departure, and give you time to say goodbye to your community. Until you are back with us, I wish you Godspeed and His blessings, my child.’

‘Merci, Mère Gertrude,’ Keelin murmured, bowing and backing out of the door as quickly as she could in case the Reverend Mother changed her mind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

‘Petite chérie. Little puddin’, aren’t you?’ Brigid crooned, caressing the cheeks of the plump six-month-old baby boy in her arms. When Joseph had first been brought to the clinic, three months previously, he had been suffering from malnutrition and diarrhoea. Now, after their care, observation, and nutritional advice and aid to the young mother, her first child was thriving, alert and smiling at Brigid. ‘Here you are, Yacine, he’s doing great,’ Brigid said, reluctantly handing him back to this mother. ‘See you next month.’

‘Merci, Soeur, merci.’ The young woman handed Brigid a bottle of bissap juice, made from the hibiscus flower native to West Africa. The ruby-coloured drink was most refreshing and Yacine always added orange peel and ginger to her homemade blend.

‘Merci, Yacine, I will drink this with pleasure.’ Brigid took the gift gratefully. She’d already been presented with a chicken, yams, a bead bracelet and a hand-woven basket in the clinic this morning.

‘Yacine’s the last,’ Sister Dominique said cheerfully, closing the door to the examination room. ‘We should be home before dark.’

They had a fifty-mile journey ahead of them, and Brigid was relieved that they would be navigating the dirt trails in daylight.

‘Do you want to drive?’ she asked the young Senegalese nun.

‘Oh Brigid, you’re the best,’ Dominique whooped. She loved driving.

‘We’re not in the Dakar Rally now,’ Brigid reminded her colleague, laughing. Dominique was fast, and Brigid, who liked to drive fast herself, often had to tell the younger woman that she’d like to get to their destination alive!

They ate some chicken and rice stew, drank a glass each of Yacine’s bissap, and had a mango, before locking up the clinic and packing up the jeep. It had been a busy day and Brigid was tired but satisfied with how it had gone.

Darkness had fallen by the time they arrived at their small compound, and the welcoming light in the sitting room window shone out onto the veranda, where Sister Philomene was reading under the mosquito net, moving backwards and forwards in the rocking chair.

‘Hi, Brigid, there was a call for you from Dakar. Mère Perpetua is flying in from Paris tonight. You have to go to St Louis tomorrow.’

‘But I’ve a clinic in Diama,’ protested Brigid.