‘I know what I’ll do, while we’re waiting,’ Keelin said with a gleam in her eye. ‘I want to get something out of my case.’ She came back in from the hall holding a box in her hands. ‘My Mary Magdalene cards,’ she explained. ‘Let’s all choose a card and see what message she gives us. They’re cards with guidance and words of wisdom on them, Mam. You always get the message you need. I use them in my work all the time,’ Keelin explained to her mother. Marie-Claire and Brigid were familiar with them.

‘Ohhh yes,’ Marie-Claire exclaimed. Imelda looked dubious, and Brigid’s eyes lit up.

‘This is what we’ll do,’ Keelin shuffled the deck, ‘We’ll pick one each, and whatever the message is, we’ll keep it to ourselves. Then we can talk about it on our last night in Scotland, if we want to. Or if you want to keep it private, that’s OK too, Mam.’ She spread out the pack and held it out to her mother.

Imelda pursed her lips and eyed the cards warily. ‘I’m not sure about this woo-woo stuff,’ she said.

‘If you don’t want one, it’s OK.’ Keelin shrugged.

‘Oh, I’ll take one to please you.’ She selected a card, looked at it, and her lips tightened. ‘Hmmm,’ she muttered.

Brigid took one eagerly, read it and her eyes widened. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed.

Keelin chose her card, and smiled at the message.

‘My turn.’ Marie-Claire laid the creamy roulade on the table and leaned over and plucked a card out of the deck.

‘I wonder what this means,’ she said, studying it.

‘Here, you can have this back,’ Imelda said, thrusting her card into the deck. ‘Messages indeed! They’re only cards.’

‘No problem,’ Keelin said coolly, agog to know what card her mother had selected that had prompted her testy response.

‘I’ll keep mine, if you don’t mind,’ Brigid said quietly.

‘Me too.’ Marie-Claire tucked hers into her handbag.

Imelda sat sour-faced.

Later, after Marie-Claire had driven Brigid and Imelda back to their hotel, she and Keelin sat in Marie-Claire’s cosy lounge area sipping a G&T before going to bed.

‘I’d love to know what message Granny got. She wasn’t impressed at all!’ Marie-Claire threw a log on the wood burner and watched it blaze up in a shower of sparks.

‘You can be assured it was exactly the message she was meant to get,’ Keelin said ruefully. ‘And I think this trip will be make or break for her and me. Finally, after all these years, there will be a resolution to our problems one way or another.’