‘We’ll be in and out in no time. And you know what, we’re going to get a big fat ninety-nine cone after we have our lunch,’ she smiled at him.

‘Yippppeeeeeee,’ he yelled, dancing up and down.

‘You’re easily pleased,’ Imelda laughed, in spite of herself. ‘Come on, take Keelin’s hand crossing the road.’ She turned Peter’s buggy around and checked for traffic before crossing over to the church.

‘Can I light a penny candle?’ Cormac begged as they walked up the long aisle, towards a confession box, which had a small queue waiting.

‘Go on. Keelin, go with him and make sure he doesn’t set fire to himself or the church. I’ll sit in the queue.’ She handed her son and daughter a bronze coin each, removed Peter from his buggy and carried him into the row of seats beside the confession box. She watched her children lighting their candles. They were well behaved, she acknowledged. A credit to her and Larry, her father had said recently.

The one good thing to come out of her marriage, she sighed, moving up a seat as the queue got shorter. ‘Go on in,’ she said to Keelin, when the door to the confession box opened and the penitent before them emerged, head down, blessing himself. Keelin scooted in obediently, the picture of piety, Imelda thought, amused.

She was out in less than five minutes. ‘I’ll mind Peter while you go in,’ Keelin held out her hands for her baby brother.

‘Oh!’ Imelda was thrown. She hadn’t planned to go to confession. But when she saw her daughter’s innocent, trusting face looking up at her expectantly, she handed Peter over to her and slipped into the dark box that smelled vaguely musty, despite the polished wood.

She heard the click of the shutter as it was pulled across and saw the priest in dim shadow, head bowed, on the other side of the grille. He nodded his head. ‘Make a good confession, my child.’

‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned; it’s two months since my last confession, Father,’ she murmured. ‘I—’

‘Two months! What sin has kept you from the sacrament that long?’ The priest lifted his head and looked at her sternly.

‘Anger, Father.’ Imelda shrugged despondently.

‘Anger at whom, my child?’

‘My husband, and God!’ She might as well be honest, she decided. She was, after all, in confession.

‘And what has provoked this anger?’

‘I caught my husband having an affair and—’

‘What caused your husband to have a relationship outside of the confines of marriage? Have you been granting him his conjugal rights?’

‘What?’ Imelda snapped, not sure if she’d heard right.

‘Have you been giving your husband his conjugal rights?’ The priest looked askance at her disrespectful tone.