Sister Conheady did not reply. Her head was bowed, and he left the room not knowing if the agitation had gone from her face. In the hall the Reverend Mother was unhurriedly pacing up and down, talking quietly to a young nun Tom had never seen before. Engrossed in their conversation, they didn’t speak to him as he went by. He reached up and unlatched the door, and closed it softly behind him.

‘How’re you doing, Tom?’ Mr Coyne said as he passed the petrol pump, and he replied that he was doing all right. All the way to the quays there wasn’t a chance to read the note Sister Conheady had written because someone might have seen him at it and guessed he was doing something wrong. On the ferryboat he wasn’t able to read it in front of the ferryman, but on the island, when he was out of sight of the boat, he lifted the two books from his schoolbag and took the note from where he’d placed it between the pages of one of them. Please in future send one of the maids for the books, Sister Conheady’s handwriting instructed, nothing else.

He replaced the note between the pages of Out of the Ruins and walked on, passing the gate-lodge by because he always delivered the library books to the kitchen of the house as soon as he’d collected them. He should have known something as bad as this would happen if he was outspoken with Sister Conheady. ‘That’ll be the first one you’ll read yourself,’ she’d said once, taking a book down from the shelves, and reading a few lines about a shipwreck.

In the kitchen of the house he wanted to tell his mother what had happened, but he knew she’d be cross so he didn’t. He placed the books on the table as he always did, and placed the note on top of them so that it would be seen. His mother called out from the sculleries, asking if it was Tom who had come in.

‘I’m leaving the books here, and a note Sister Conheady wrote.’

‘Tom, Mrs Rolleston wants you. Will you go up to her bedroom?’

It would be to buy another postal order. He thought that all the way up the back stairs, imagining Mr O’Hagan’s face in the post office and the way he had of whispering to himself while he slowly leafed through the box of postal orders.

‘Ah, Tom.’

‘Hullo, Mrs Rolleston.’

She was in bed, sitting up against her pillows. She smiled at him. She pointed at the money on the dressing-table, the envelope already addressed beside it. When he was over at the convent tomorrow, she began, and did not have to continue because he understood.

‘Tom,’ she said when he was about to go. ‘Come here beside me, Tom.’