Maura’s mouth was a round ‘O’ as she absorbed all she’d heard. Her Majesty Brigid had been royally shagged before entering the convent. She wouldn’t die wondering. Strangely, Maura was glad for the elderly nun. At least she’d had one rub of the relic! A bit of ould sex couldn’t be beat.

‘Are ya happy now, ya mean-spirited briar?’ Una couldn’t contain herself, rounding on Imelda with fury.

‘Una!’ The Mother General’s warning tone was enough to stop the housekeeper in her tracks. ‘I’ll deal with this.’ She fixed Imelda with a basilisk stare. ‘I think, perhaps, it’s best if you leave, and that we retire.’

‘I’m not one of your nuns. You can’t tell me what to do,’ Imelda retorted.

‘Thank God, in His Divine Mercy, that you’re not.’

The Frenchwoman’s withering retort took the wind out of Imelda’s sails and she flushed with anger, the red tide creeping up her neck to her hairline.

‘Aller!’ The nun pointed imperiously to the door. Imelda turned on her heel and followed her sister through the doorway.

It was as though everyone in the room exhaled when she disappeared out into the hall.

‘Bien.’ Mother General Aloysius gazed sternly at the dumbfounded partygoers. ‘This is a sad state of affairs. Oui? I would ask from the bottom of my heart that not a word of this goes outside of this room. I beg your discrétion in the matter.’ She glanced over at the cluster of nuns standing beneath the picture of the Sacred Heart. They lowered their eyes under her penetrating scrutiny. Aloysius did not want gossip about Brigid sidling from convent to convent and over to the Mother House and beyond. Brigid’s fall from grace was catastrophic for her, and at this hour of her life. There but for the grace of God went any of them. The Mother General gave a little shiver. She too had her secrets.

Una went out into the hall. Imelda was at the hallstand, stony-faced, rooting for her coat. ‘I’m getting the bus driver to bring you home on your own, right now,’ she said coldly. ‘Because I’d say the rest of your family would like to lynch you.’

With her head held high, Imelda marched out to the bus and never looked back.

*

Maura gave a discreet tap on the sturdy white door with the old-fashioned round brass knob.

‘Please, leave me be.’ Mother Brigid’s voice had a hint of a tremor. Maura, ignoring the plea, opened the bedroom door. Brigid was in her dressing gown, sitting in her rocking chair looking out at the darkness of the windswept night. A flash of irritation crossed her face when she saw who it was. ‘I asked to be left alone, Maura,’ she said coldly.