He walked past and opened the door of the church, standing aside for her to exit first and then shutting the door before striding ahead of her, his head high and his black robes flapping. Olive had a job to keep up with him but he didn’t turn to see if she was behind him at any point before they reached Devonshire Street. By the time she arrived at the house Father McHaffie had already knocked on the front door. Olive could imagine the consternation her mother would be feeling as she hurried into the hall; no one ever used the front door except the doctor and the priest, and apart from her mam scrubbing the front step and whitening it each week the door remained closed.

Sure enough, her mother’s face expressed a mixture of anxiety and surprise when the door swung open and she said, ‘Father McHaffie, we weren’t expecting you tonight, were we? Come in, come in, the weather’s dreadful, isn’t it, and with the wedding tomorrow an’ all. I was just saying to George—’ And then her mother stopped abruptly as she caught sight of Olive behind the priest.

‘Good evening, Mrs Morgan.’ Father McHaffie swept into the house and straight down the hall into the kitchen, which further flustered Cissy. The priest, like the doctor, was of such standing in the community that he was only ever shown into Cissy’s mausoleum of a front room. She cast a desperate glance at Olive before scurrying after Father McHaffie. In the kitchen she found that George had stood to his feet and was rolling down his shirtsleeves as he said, ‘Good evening, Father,’ and now she twisted the corner of her pinny, saying, ‘Won’t you come into the front room, Father, and I’ll make some tea? You must be frozen.’

‘Here will do perfectly well.’ The priest seated himself on one of the hard-backed chairs at the kitchen table, and Cissy breathed a sigh of relief that she had just cleared the remains of the evening meal and wiped the oilcloth over it before putting the pot of hyacinths which had been a present from Ruby into the middle of the newly cleaned expanse.

George had seated himself again once the priest had sat down. Cissy looked helplessly at her husband before she said, ‘I’ll make that pot of tea then, Father.’

‘That would be most welcome.’