‘Tide’s going out,’ Brigit said, veering sharply inland towards the town. On Main Street we passed a lanky man outside the hardware store. Brigit exclaimed, ‘Padraig!’ and pulled in suddenly.

‘Just need to return his wetsuit.’ She jumped from the jeep. ‘Two seconds.’

I followed her because I knew that a two-second handover of a wetsuit would become fifteen minutes of intense chat. All fine with me, I was on my holidays.

Padraig was full of news: there had been a ‘ruckus’ in the creamery; the hotel had offered Arthur Ankles a contract until Halloween and ‘the powers that be’ were worried about some ‘young fellas coming from Dublin’ for the August bank holiday. Apparently they didn’t ‘want a repeat of last year’.

About five minutes into the chat, when the drizzle began, neither Brigit nor Padraig noticed. My theory was that when you’d lived here for half a year, you grew a water-repellent coating. Not fully waterproof—you wouldn’t survive a dunking in a rain barrel, say—but light precipitation no longer penetrated.

After we—eventually—said goodbye to Padraig, we got cash from the ATM, filled a prescription for Ree, picked up a plug for Brigit’s father-in-law’s haybob, then went to Femke’s mansion, where we were offered hot drinks from a machine designed by Dolce & Gabbana.

Driving back on the old bog road, I suddenly said, ‘Bridge? Have I ever thanked you for saving my life? Twenty years ago?’

‘…Yes.’ She looked surprised. ‘Lots of times. Why?’

‘I just wanted to say it again.’

‘Okay. You’re welcome. It’s being in contact with Luke, isn’t it? Bringing back memories?’

‘So I’ll be okay?’

‘You already are okay. Look at all the freedom you have.’

‘You’re right, Bridge!’ Suddenly it hit me. ‘I can do anything with my life.’

‘Like what? Go on, Rachel, tell me.’

This was what we used to do when we’d shared an apartment—construct beautiful futures for each other.

‘…Okay,’ I said. ‘I’d go to London, where I’d befriend some posh old lady, living in a grace-and-favour apartment, whatever they are. She has a giant stash of fabulous vintage handbags—Chanel, Hermès, Goyard, more Chanel…’

‘And she gives them to you?’ Brigit gasped.

‘Ah now. This is a fantasy but nothing is that easy.’

‘I have it! She’s down on her luck, I don’t know, a dispute with her son, or something. You propose that she sells some of the bags—’

‘—but she’d be mortified by going along to the local designer exchange, so I’d set her up online, running the whole show, loading the images to the site, setting up her PayPal account, dealing with all the admin—’

‘Colm could help, if you had any IT issues—’

‘That’s handy, thanks. So the old lady—’

‘What’s her name? Some posh thing. Persephone?’