‘Can I help you?’ a young white-coated assistant asked Brigid.

‘So, will I buy a few cakes for us, Imelda?’ Brigid cocked her head quizzically, her blue-eyed gaze never wavering from Imelda’s.

‘Oh go on then. A cherry-and-walnut slice for me,’ Imelda said grudgingly. She would have preferred to make her peace with the family at a time and place of her choosing – she’d imagined many deathbed scenarios – but she couldn’t deny the way her heart had lifted when she’d seen Marie-Claire. And Brigid, who by rights should have been very snooty, after having her party ruined, was showing admirable forbearance. Maybe it was time to let bygones be bygones, Imelda acknowledged in the welcome solitude of her car, as she drove towards home, followed by her relatives.

She felt butterflies flutter around her innards and her hands tightened on the steering wheel. Would Brigid go for the jugular and attack her for her behaviour on the night of the party? She’d every right to, Imelda had gone way too far, especially announcing to all and sundry, including Brigid’s Mother General, that she’d seen her sister having sex with Johnny Larkin.

It was time to face the music. She would just have to sit there and zip it and take what was coming to her. If the Botox had permitted her to frown, she would have.

*

‘That was a stroke of luck, wasn’t it?’ Marie-Claire followed Imelda’s silver Volvo out of the car park.

‘It certainly was,’ Brigid agreed. ‘It couldn’t have worked out better. We weren’t left standing on the doorstep with the door closed in our faces. Or left standing because she wasn’t in. The Lord works in mysterious ways,’ she smiled.

‘She looks great, in spite of everything. So fresh and rested. The quarrel certainly hasn’t taken it out of her, the way it’s taken it out of Maman,’ Marie-Claire observed crossly, indicating left, to follow her grandmother off the main street.

‘Imelda doesn’t have the responsibility for the shop anymore. That must be a great weight off her shoulders. She’s got a good life now, I suppose, after all the running around she’d had to do, and she deserves to take it easy, in fairness,’ Brigid pointed out.

‘I love the coat and the bag. Granny always looks smart. She never buys this side of the Shannon, she told me once. She doesn’t want to be seen in anything anyone else would have. She always goes to Dublin for her clothes.’