He hesitated before answering. ‘Not yet. Or my daughters. My mother doesn’t want me to. She said it would ruin every future family gathering.’ He saw her reaction to the word ‘ruin’. ‘I’m sorry. It was a bad choice of words. I want them all to know, when the time feels right. You deserve it and they deserve to know. I’d rather tell my brothers face-to-face, though. And we’re not together very often. I can call them if you want me to, or I can wait.’

She thought about it. More questions flooded her mind. What if they didn’t react as well as Emmet had? As kindly? What if the news caused real tension in the family, with Sheila especially? Yes, one day she would like to meet them all. She hoped that one day she would. But perhaps it didn’t all have to happen right now. She’d waited thirty years to meet Emmet, after all. ‘I’m happy for you to do whatever feels right,’ she said.

‘I’ll tell them everything, one day, I promise. When —’

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. She knew he meant after Sheila was gone.

‘And Dervla?’ Eliza asked.

‘I’ve already told her. We tell each other everything.’

‘Was she shocked?’

‘She was, yes.’ He left it at that. He asked Eliza who she had told. Her godmothers and her best friend, she said. One other person too. Lawrence. She didn’t know how to describe him.

He asked when she was going back to Australia. At the end of the week, she told him. He asked who she had waiting for her there. Her best friend Rose and her family, she said.

‘You have no other family in Australia?’ he asked.

‘I had grandparents, but I never met them. My mother told me they’d died in an accident.’

‘As she told my father you had?’ He hesitated. ‘Eliza, Jeannie wasn’t always well, was she?’

It was thoughtfully put. ‘No. I didn’t always realise it at the time. My godmothers have told me more stories. She was in trouble a lot.’ She told him about the car theft, about Jeannie leaving school early. He didn’t look surprised. ‘You knew about that?’

‘She told me about it in London. But she told me so many stories, I was never sure which were true. They were always entertaining, though, I’ll give her that.’

Out of nowhere, Eliza felt like laughing. Yes, her mother’s stories had always been entertaining. It seemed extraordinary to be talking to someone who’d known that too. Who’d heard her stories. Been amused by them. Who had cared about her too; she could tell.

She saw Emmet glance at his watch. They’d been talking for two hours. It felt like only minutes had passed.