Minutes later, she joined the others back at the table. ‘Right, that’s it,’ she said. ‘I’m going to see Matron this afternoon and ask will she let me have a little holiday.’

‘That’s great,’ said Pammy, ‘but are you going to tell me why you had your fingers crossed behind your back when Dr Gaskell was speaking to you, because it looked to me like you was lying, and being a good Irish Catholic girl, you aren’t supposed to do that.’

Dana flushed bright red. She knew that Pammy and all the nurses on the ward had assumed that Mary Kate and Dr Marcus were married. ‘I can’t tell you, Pammy,’ she said. ‘I just need to go and put right something I think I might have done wrong. I’ve said something I shouldn’t have, or rather written something I shouldn’t have, and so I need to go and put it right.’

‘Oh, get you, the mysterious one,’ said Pammy. ‘Honest to God, it’s like reading a book, knowing you. Every day’s a different story. Tell you what, I’ll help you pack when we get back to the nurses’ home tonight. I’m sure if you explain to Matron she won’t mind a bit.’

‘I hope not, Pammy. I really need to go, I’ve done something terrible.’

*

Bee and Mary Kate had worked all morning long without any kind of a break and Mary Kate had been surprised to discover that as she scrubbed the walls and dry-ironed the sheets, the pain she carried in her heart for Nicholas was numbed by the sustained effort. She had even caught herself almost singing as she lit the fire while Bee finished limewashing the back walls in that part of the cottage that Sarah had slept when she was a girl.

It was only when they stopped working and sat at the kitchen table to eat the lunch Bee had brought with her that Mary Kate felt the weight of sadness fall across her shoulders like an invisible cloak, pressing her down onto the chair. Sensing the sudden change, Bee strode across the cottage floor and flung the wooden door open. ‘We can catch the last of this sunshine before it disappears,’ she said.

Despite the wintery sun, the ocean before them remained grey and the white breakers looked as angry as the seagulls that screeched and hovered above them. The mountain was just in view to the side and its slopes, caught by the sun, reflected back a deep emerald green.

Mary Kate’s eyes filled with tears and her throat constricted. Unable to put the bread and cheese into her mouth, she nursed the mug of tea in her hands. How Nicholas would have loved to have sat there and viewed that perfect, unspoilt scene.

Bee placed her arms around her shoulders. ‘It will happen like this,’ she said as she dropped a kiss on her head. ‘Hours will pass and you’ll be amazed at how you forget, especially when you’re busy, and then you’ll be filled with the guilt, haunted by it, you will be, just because you’ve momentarily forgotten. But it happens the way God meant it to.’