‘How are the children?’ he asked.

‘Oh, they’re all good. They’re staying in Mrs O’Keefe’s house while we’re here. Joan and Deidra are in charge.’

Michael laughed and kicked a cinder with his foot. ‘Jesus, I hope they both have eyes in the backs of their heads. Imagine!’

Their eyes met and they both laughed at the thought of Cat’s unruly children. He’d got to know them well in the short time he’d spent at Cat’s house and it brought a closeness between them. She felt warm inside that he remembered the children, that the memory of them made his eyes light up.

‘I almost shudder to think,’ she said. ‘God alone knows what I’ll be going home to.’

‘Cat—’

‘Michael—’

They both spoke at the same time.

‘I was just going to say—’ It was Cat speaking first.

Michael stopped her. ‘No, please, let me.’

‘Are you sure, because—’ She wanted to save him from having to put it into words. To save them both. As much as she had thought about him and wanted to be back in his arms, she would do nothing to hurt this family or that lovely woman, Rosie, who was being so kind to her and had made her feel so welcome.

‘Cat, I wanted you to know… You can see for yourself, I am not a free man and I never will be. It’s not the way over here. There’s not a man in this village who has ever left his wife or been divorced. It’s not like Liverpool.’

Cat threw her cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of her shoe. ‘Michael, please, you don’t have to explain.’

‘No, I do. I should have behaved better than I did. You looked after me and, God alone knows, Mary Kate too. I took advantage of the situation and it was unforgivable of me.’

‘Michael, that was me – I took advantage of you.’

Their eyes locked and they both laughed together. Only one was lying; the other was relieved.

‘You don’t have to worry,’ said Cat. ‘Not a word will be spoken to anyone, it’s just between us.’

The weight slipped from his shoulders. ‘You are a grand woman, Cat.’

‘And you’re a good man, Michael. Rosie is a very lucky woman.’

He leant forward and placed a gentle kiss on her lips – not something a married man in Tarabeg did to anyone but his wife.

Cat smiled. Her heart hadn’t broken.

Michael looked up to the night sky and scanned the stars. ‘Do you know, Cat, sometimes I look up at that sky and I feel so small and insignificant. Don’t you? Do you ever wonder which one is your poor husband or ask yourself why, if we are such little people in the whole scheme of things, did God need to take our loved ones from us?’

Cat looked up. She had never shared such thoughts. Her life since her husband had died had been about bringing up her children alone and surviving from one day to the next.