‘Well I can be the first.’ Mary Kate searched her pocket for a handkerchief, then gratefully took the one Rosie held out and blew her nose, hard. ‘The man’s obviously obscene. He’s all money and no brain. Look at that car…’ She flicked her head towards the Bentley at the end of the back pathway. ‘Why would anyone drive a car like that around here? He’s just showing off. My Nicholas, he would never have been that vulgar. He healed the sick – people loved him because he did it with his hands, not his wallet. Rosie, he was the kindest man you could ever meet. You would have liked him so much more than that show-off.’

Rosie stroked her arm. ‘Aye, I’m sure, but they do things differently in America and that doesn’t make anyone the worse for any of it. Come on, dry your eyes, let’s get back inside in the warm before they all come out here looking for you.’

‘I doubt that will happen with flash Harry in the kitchen,’ snapped Mary Kate as she allowed Rosie to lead her back in.

They were stopped in their tracks by the sight of Declan in the doorway. He was wearing a new green Fair Isle jumper his mother had knitted, and his customary cap.

‘Hello, how are ye?’ he said, and Rosie, without another word, hurried around the side of him and disappeared into the kitchen.

Mary Kate hadn’t seen him since he’d risked his job to help her run away from Tarabeg in the dead of night. For the briefest moment, she just looked at him, remembering his kiss and his request that she think of him as someone other than just the man who worked with her stepmother and taught at the school. She felt a brief flash of shame. ‘Hello, Declan. I’m all right, I suppose. How are you?’ She blew her nose and patted her eyes, then took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, thrusting the handkerchief into her pocket.

Declan was carrying a pint pot in one hand, but he slipped the other into his trouser pocket so that Mary Kate wouldn’t see it trembling. ‘You don’t have to apologise to me,’ he said. ‘I’m grand. That was big news in there and you didn’t seem too happy about it, if I might say so. There’s no need to be too upset about it though. You know this place – the people will stay the same.’ He’d seen every thought as it crossed her mind.

‘That’s what Rosie said. What’s Mr Big Pockets like, Declan?’ Mary Kate asked, thinking she might have found an ally in him.

‘Oh, he’s a good man, right enough. Spends a lot of his time in Galway. Asked me to go with him once, but Mammy wasn’t well again, so I couldn’t. He told me all about it when he got back, mind – he’s good like that.’

‘Oh, Declan, I am sorry. Bee told me your mammy lives here now…’ Her voice trailed off. Bee had also told her what a tyrant his mother was, the most unreasonable mother in the west, and how she never gave him a moment’s peace.