The familiar outline of Ardcloch’s small church came into view, and below it, the houses and farms nestled in the valley. Memories surged back as she took in the patchwork of her grandparents’ farm in the distance and the house where Brigid and Imelda had grown up, and where Keelin had spent much of her childhood and teenage years helping out. She remembered watching the rising sun exploding in glorious Technicolor over the top of the hills, her feet drenched with dew, foraging for mushrooms with her grandfather, to cook on the griddle with salt and butter for breakfast. Happy, sweet memories to counteract the sad ones, she acknowledged, looking eagerly along the main street of the village where Kennedy’s shop and Post Office still stood, with its press-down brass door handle that rang a bell when you entered. Across the street stood the green cow-tail water pump, where in the old days the women of Ardcloch used to gather to chat and fill their water containers. The water from that pump made a great cup of tea, Keelin remembered nostalgically.

The primary school beside the church was closed now, while the bigger one in Glencarraig, where she’d been a pupil, had expanded. Always the rivalry between Ardcloch and Glencarraig, which dared to think of itself as a town. ‘They have notions in that place. They think they’re a cut above the rest of us,’ her granny used to say scornfully when Imelda said how much she liked living there. Driving past the church and graveyard, Keelin felt the spirits of her long-dead relatives greet her in warm welcome. ‘You’re back. You’re home,’ she fancied she heard them say.

Keelin rooted in her bag, found her mobile phone and scrolled to Imelda’s number. ‘In Ardcloch now, Mam,’ she said when her mother answered. ‘Stick the kettle on.’

*

Imelda peered at herself in the mirror, inspecting the sides of her mouth and chin. She’d noticed, when she’d gone to clean the mirror in the guest room en suite, that she was sporting several curly white hairs that needed snipping. Thank goodness she’d been wearing her glasses. She wouldn’t have seen the little buggers without them, and the last thing she wanted was to meet her French son-in-law looking like a walrus.

Armand Durand was not her favourite person. It was all his fault that she and Keelin had become estranged. His fault that Larry had died a troubled man.

It was only after Larry’s funeral that Imelda, unable to bear Keelin’s distress, had grudgingly held out the olive branch. For the sake of her daughter, and grandchild, she tolerated Keelin’s French husband and tried to be civil to him. But it wasn’t easy. Not easy at all!