‘Oh God, Mère, that’s hilarious,’ gasped Keelin, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. ‘I’m going to bring a spoon to bed when I get home, and when Armand gets frisky I’ll give him a tap with it, just for the laugh.’

‘Oh, Maman! Could you imagine his face?’ Marie-Claire hooted, almost choking.

Imelda was chuckling heartily, unable to believe how much fun she was having. She’d told Felicity she was going on a ‘girls’ weekend’. Had she ever envisaged sitting in the Four Winds, laughing with her sister, daughter and grandchild? There was a time, in the not too distant past, when she would never have believed such a thing could happen. She was as happy as she’d ever been in her entire life.

Now, as she placed her cup in the dishwasher the following morning, Imelda relished how much a part of their little group she’d become. And most importantly today, she was here to support Brigid who had suggested that, as a protest against the Church’s handling of widespread abuse, instead of joining those watching the Pope celebrate Mass in Phoenix Park, they would travel to the town of Tuam, where the bodies of almost eight hundred children were buried in a mass grave. All of them had agreed to the suggestion instantly when Brigid had broached it.

‘Not only were those poor little children and their vulnerable, unfortunate mothers betrayed, the Catholic Church and their corrupt hierarchy has betrayed every good nun and priest who has ever lived and worked for God. I abhor the Church I gave my life to,’ she’d raged one day to Keelin, provoked by news coverage of the Pope’s impending visit.

‘Don’t think of it like that, Mère. Think instead of all the lives that have been touched with such goodness, integrity and pure intention by you and your fellow nuns and priests. You have all done so much to raise the vibration of the world. The darkness has to have a spotlight shone on it to be healed. That’s why all these atrocities are coming to light now, all over the world,’ Keelin counselled.

‘I suppose you’re right, dear.’ Brigid found some small comfort in her niece’s words. Keelin had a way of looking at things that would never have occurred to her. ‘But it’s terrible to think such a thing happened in Ireland and nothing was done about it. That far from stopping it, the Church enabled those responsible to continue.’

The more she thought about it, the more determined she was to make a mini-pilgrimage to Tuam.

*

They left the Four Winds half an hour later and took the N68 to link up with the motorway to Tuam. It was warm but cloudy, and the fields on either side of the road were scorched brown. Dry as a bone for the want of rain, after forty days of drought.