Her mother’s voice became louder, more urgent. ‘Just leave it, would you?’

‘No,’ she said. Tess thought of her new brother or sister and the fantastic childhood that lay ahead of them. A childhood with two parents. No questions. No rumours. No sideways looks or pitying comments. Growing up, that had been her lot. Yet she’d shunted it all aside and made something of herself. All she was seeking now was the truth. She wanted to know who she was. ‘What if my father reads about me, or sees me in a magazine or on the telly? What then?’

‘That isn’t going to happen.’

‘Why not?’

Her mother was quiet while she thought about her answer. Tess noticed that her hands were shaking.

‘The reason it’s not going to happen, Tess, is because your father is dead.’

Chapter 15

While Tom had many talents, cooking wasn’t among them. His dinners were slapdash efforts, usually incinerated, occasionally semi-raw. Despite this, Nina was pleased that, when she got back to Dublin, he was attempting to make a chicken casserole. She saw it as a peace offering of sorts. That was good. She couldn’t have handled another row.

Before leaving Kilmitten, she’d gone for a walk with Conor and Tess. It hadn’t been a success. While both had claimed to be pleased by their parents’ news, neither was in great form. Conor took aim at half of the village. They were stupid or mean-spirited or worse. This crabbiness was unlike him, and Nina assumed Lourda Ryan and Mercedes Talty were proxies for whatever had actually upset him. Tess was in unusually lacklustre humour, her only responses a feeble ‘Yeah’ or ‘Why not?’ Her thoughts were elsewhere. In New York or London, presumably.

‘Sit yourself down there,’ said Tom, then gave Nina a deep, enthusiastic kiss. He handed her a glass of red wine. ‘I want all the news.’

While they ate, she gave a carefully edited account of the weekend. In the main, they spoke about Flan and Ginny. She mentioned Julian Heaney, but did her best to skip lightly over the documentary. Tom was in entertaining mode. Several of his questions were asked in the style of Kilmitten’s more notable gossips. He imagined Mags and Mercedes, bubbling with anger at their failure to spot Flan and Ginny’s courtship. (‘I swear to you, Mags, I’m never giving that woman my Beaches video again.’ ‘Too right, Mercedes, and if she wants to borrow the good jacket I got in Todd’s, she can think on.’) Then he did a turn as the current parish priest. Father Cleary was a charmless character, whose homilies were strong on sin and weak on forgiveness. Tom captured him perfectly. Sometimes Nina forgot how funny he could be.

Relaxed by wine and laughter, they had sex. Afterwards, Tom slept in a satisfied curl. Nina lay there, listening to the snuffling sound he sometimes made, confusion coursing through her.