‘So what’s with the camera?’ I ask.

Oh please, please God, don’t let anybody have told her about the photographs!

‘I got me some funding from the Arts Council,’ she explains, ‘to make a short fillum for the Pavee about Orla. To show to my people at horse fairs and so on. I been carryin’ this damn ting around wid me for the best part of three month already, gettin’ testimony an’ the like. Well,’ she confides, voice lowering, ‘mainly it’s just bin myself readin’ poems and reminiscin’. Aishling and Saoirse an’ the smaller girls have bin drawing and painting to add a bit o’ colour. Donnie has wrote a song, God bless his soul.’

‘So why …’ I gesticulate towards the bigger cameras and the crew.

‘Well some bright spark over at Channel 4 got it in their heads to make a television programme about all what I’m set on doing. Like the dumb play in Macbeth. You ever read that book, Carla?’

‘At school.’ I nod.

‘A fillum wid’in a fillum, see? And to my way of tinking, if it exposes more people in the world to our Pavee saint, Orla Nor Cleary …’ – she crosses herself, reverently – ‘the patron saint of all Aboriginal peoples, then that mustn’t be any bad ting, eh?’

Okay. Okay. Okay …

I struggle to process the ramifications of this news. They’re not good, are they? The ramifications? They can’t be good, can they? For … for this … for us … for me?

‘Fine,’ I say (Oh no, no, it isn’t fine! It isn’t fine! Not at all!), ‘but you must know that the cottage is currently occupied, and I can’t give you permission to just …’ (I mean how could I possibly have imagined this? How? How? How could I have possibly …?)

‘Don’t you worry yourself about nottin’, Carla,’ Sorcha clucks, reaching out a sandy hand and rearranging my fringe with it, then gazing at me (a slight tip of the head) through the camera lens. ‘I don’t need no permission. The TV peoples will sort all that out for us.’

‘But you’re blocking access to Toot Rock, Sorcha,’ I repeat.

Oh please, please, please don’t let anybody have told her about the photographs!

‘No, I’m not actually blocking it, my love,’ she insists, ‘I’m pretending to block it. For the fillum. But I’m not actually blocking it. I wouldn’t do that to you, my poor sweet darling girl.’

‘But you are actually blocking it,’ I maintain, ‘nobody can gain access.’

As I speak, a TV sound-woman (well I presume that’s who she is) is gesticulating towards us both.

‘There’s a woman,’ I say, ‘holding a big grey fluffy thing on a pole, waving her arms at us.’

Sorcha lowers her camera and turns. ‘Ah, that there’ll be Claudia on sound. My mike must be playin’ up.’

‘So you’re … this is being …? This entire conversation is being recorded?!’ I stammer.

‘Well it should’ve been, my love, but if the damn mike’s back to its old tricks …’ Sorcha fiddles with something tiny, black and mechanical on her shirt. ‘We might need to re-stage this, Carla …’ She turns and waves the sound-woman over. ‘Perhaps start off wid a little bit more of a formal introduction next time around? Like, filter in some useful information as we talk, you know, along the lines of, uh, “As the official custodian of Orla’s shrine, it’s a joy to welcome you back to Pett Level, Sorcha …” I mean I don’t really know what kind of a role you’ll be wanting to play, there, Carla …’