She laughed but had no time to say any more as Peggy shouted, ‘Keeva, help me to dish up, would you.’

Mary Kate stood on her own watching Joe surrounded by people demanding his attention. She felt stupidly neglected and out of place in her own home. She was the person the party was supposed to be in aid of, but she had been all but forgotten. Keeva was wrong: someone did mind him being here – Mary Kate minded. She disliked him on sight and hoped that his spell as a visitor would soon come to an end. She felt a strange and growing hostility towards the man who appeared to attract the women in the room like bees to honey.

She had already discovered that the best way to deal with grief was to keep busy, so she went about the room collecting the enamel bowls as people finished eating. She could feel Joe’s eyes boring into her back, but she refused to look his way. I’m sorry to disappoint you, she thought to herself, but we haven’t all spent our entire lives in Tarabeg. I won’t be falling at your feet like the rest of them.

She was only halfway through clearing up when Father Jerry scraped back the chair he was sitting on and rose to his feet. ‘I have an announcement to make, on this special night,’ he said.

The room fell quiet and Mary Kate stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh God, this is it,’ she said to Keeva, who took the dishes from her. ‘The official welcome home.’

Keeva frowned and hugged the bowls to her as she fixed her eyes on Father Jerry.

Mary Kate was surprised that Father Jerry had barely acknowledged her. She had thrown him a watery smile as he’d walked in through the door, but that had been met with a steely gaze and a frown. He’d ignored her since and appeared to be deep in conversation with the shiny-faced, rich-as-Croesus visitor from America.

As Keeva laid the plates on the table, Mary Kate clasped her hands in front of her, convinced that Father Jerry was now going to give an embarrassing eulogy on how he had known her since birth, how she used to sit behind the counter of the shop and serve him, and how happy they were to see her, a prodigal daughter returned to the heart of the village. She smiled, composed herself, and banished thoughts of Nicholas and her friends in Liverpool from her mind, promising them that as soon as her head touched the pillow, they could return.

‘Well now, we have news,’ said Father Jerry.

Captain Bob suddenly appeared from nowhere and it occurred to Mary Kate that she hadn’t seen sight nor sound of him all evening. He smiled sheepishly at her, and she gave him a small and curious smile back just as Tig raised his pot to her from alongside the new visitor.

Imagine, she thought, I’ve been away all this time and it’s as if I never left. I could have been gone for ten years and it would be the same. Bee was so right. This Tarabeg, her Tarabeg, it was special. It had not altered in appearance or missed a beat in its own slow and steady rhythm of life for as long as anyone could remember – apart from the annoying visitor, but he wouldn’t last long, she was sure. Tarabeg was a haven for pained souls and that was the point of home, wasn’t it? A place to turn to, a refuge in times of trouble. She felt overwhelmed with gratefulness for the solid rock that was her village, unchanging beneath her feet. Her safest space and the only place on earth she could heal. She felt a surge of gratitude to Nicholas too, for having sent her home with his final breath. In his last hour, he had thought of her, had known what was best for her, and who was she to argue with that.