‘Well, yes, I haven’t agreed to anything yet,’ the nun said. ‘Yvonne told me you looked as if you wouldn’t eat me so I thought I should come and check. But we don’t know each other, do we?’

Her voice was strong, and her gaze was intelligent. I wouldn’t have had a chance of deceiving the woman in her prime. But there had been a hint of the uncertainty that old age brings. That might be enough.

‘No, Sister. And I realise that I should have written or phoned first. But I was in the area and, honestly, I thought there’s no time like the present. Memories are so easily lost.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose. But you’re not a past pupil?’

‘No, Sister, I’m sorry, I’m making a hopeless job of explaining. I’m here about the film that was made here. I’m an amateur film historian, and I was lucky enough to see Jeremy Gill during his recent visit to Cork Film Festival. Afterwards, I had lunch with, not with Mr Gill, I wouldn’t have been so privileged. No. I had lunch with Tiernan McDevitt, the arts journalist. He worked on Mr Gill’s first film, I don’t know if you remember? No? Anyway, Tiernan told me about the filming, how it took place here. And I realised that I hadn’t known that at all. It’s such an important part of the Gill story and it’s almost completely unknown and I just thought it needed to be recorded. So here I am. Cheeky, I know. Sorry again for the short notice, Sister, and for being a terrible pest.’

I waited.

‘I see,’ Sister Bernadette said. ‘It’s not known, you say? But isn’t it in the credits that it was filmed here? I thought – no, I definitely remember that it is.’

‘Well, of course, yes. There’s a thank-you to the convent in the credits. But the circumstances aren’t known – for example, that the park in the film is the convent’s own garden. And what it was like for the community. Any special memories, all that.’

‘I see,’ Sister Bernadette said again.

After a pause, she continued.

‘What would you want to do?’

‘Talk, record an interview, take a few photos of the garden, the other locations, that kind of thing. As much, or as little, as you want. I’d put the information into the Film Festival archive, so that it would be preserved. And let you have a copy for your own archive, too.’

Most of it was true, though my amateur film historian status had only been dreamt up in the car on the way up.