‘I don’t know when it happened. I don’t know if it happened more than once. If she started it or if he started it. If it was only the night that Emmet finally woke up, if there was a kind of crazy intense relief involved. I can imagine that. That big intense rush of feeling. It was that night, he told me. But perhaps it had been building between them both before then.’

Eliza had gone still. Her mind couldn’t take in what she was hearing.

Sheila was gazing out of the window as if she was simply reminiscing. ‘They came back to Ireland a fortnight after Emmet woke up. The three of them, Emmet, Orla and Hugh. It really was a miracle. I’d expected a wheelchair. But he walked out smiling. As if nothing had happened.’

She turned. Finally looked at Eliza. ‘But I was wrong. Something had happened. You had happened.’

Her words were like a punch. Eliza stared at her.

Sheila continued. ‘I don’t know exactly when she told Hugh. I don’t know how much he sent her either. Whether it was thousands, or a few hundred. Everything got back to normal, so quickly it was almost strange. Dervla and Emmet got engaged. Emmet started working full-time in the pub. Hugh agreed to any changes he suggested. They worked side by side. Sponsorships, fundraising. Hugh went back to coaching. He was only in his early forties. Fit. He got so involved in the GAA. Coaching and county politics. He loved it. We were so happy. So lucky.’

Eliza now felt as if she was in a strange dream. None of this seemed real.

‘Then one night,’ Sheila said, ‘about eleven years after Emmet’s accident, Hugh came home with big news. He was off to Australia at the end of the year. All expenses paid. They were setting up a tournament, Australia and Ireland, compromise rules. He’d be representing Meath’s interests. That’s when he contacted your mother, Eliza. He contacted Jeannie and said, “I’m coming to Australia in a few months. I’d like to see you. I want to meet our daughter.” Oh, not that I knew any of this. Not then. I was still in the dark, you see. I thought I had a good marriage. An honest marriage.

‘But it was all arranged. A date, a time. A place. Then about a month before his trip, he got a phone call. Jeannie. Hysterical. There’d been a terrible accident. An accident outside a school. An elderly man had lost control of his car. Three girls killed. Her daughter, their daughter, among them. She’d clung to life for two days but her injuries were too catastrophic. She had died.’

Eliza spoke then. Finally. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’