Bee gave Bridget a sharp look from the corner of her eye. She was still seething, that much was obvious, and she glared at the fire as though it might dare to answer her back. A lump of burning turf spat at her and she folded her arms tighter. She was in no mood to be amused. But the thought of Teresa Gallagher, renowned teetotaller and a woman who wouldn’t be seen dead without her hair done and a hat on, lying on top of mad Mick Feenan’s grave, a man who had never been seen sober since the day he was allowed into Paddy’s bar, was her undoing. It began with a smile, which she tried her hardest to stop, but one look at Bridget and she was lost as her shoulders heaved and the laughter escaped in full-throated flow.

A cup of tea and a slice of brack later and Bee had regained her usual good humour. ‘You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if there actually was a law to stop women driving here in Ireland, never mind Tarabeg.’

Bridget leant over and slopped a drop of whiskey into Bee’s tea. ‘Always handy for restoring a good temper, and you will need that today.’ She winked and tipped a splash into her own. She’d always been abstemious, but with her fate now laid out before her and her time left on earth limited, she had other plans.

‘Even the Queen can drive in England, Breege. That’s what she did in the war, you know, drove jeeps and things. We had a television in Liverpool, not long before we left, and I saw her driving meself. Here they’ll use anything they can to control us women, and that’s always been the way. The Church, the government, the Law, not to mention the men in the family with their fists and their rules. I think it’s because they know. In Liverpool, women drive, go to work, earn money, get divorced. The married women, even the Catholic ones, take the birth-control pill so they don’t have a dozen kids like we do here in Ireland. Women over there, they’re free. It’s only here we’re still wrapped in chains.’

‘Because men know what? What do they think they know?’ asked Bridget.

‘That if we women were ever to have our own jobs, money and houses and be in charge of our own destiny, we would rule the bloody world, that’s what. I bet I can drive ten times better than Captain Bob, and I’m not even kidding you. When he’s had a drink, he’s all over the road.’ Bee let out a big sigh, the tension easing from her shoulders.

‘Is that why you and Captain Bob haven’t any of your own? Were you taking that pill?’

Bee shifted in her seat. The pill was available on prescription for married women only. She and Captain Bob hadn’t been able to marry until his wife had died, just two years ago – one of the many secrets of Tarabeg. She’d been careful to use the ugly rubber cap and to go through the uncomfortable ordeal of religiously inserting it every night. ‘Of course I used it,’ she lied. ‘Not all the doctors will prescribe it, although it’s perfectly legal over there. Our doctor did. He was good like that. He worried about the women, not the Pope. It’s only in this backwards country that it’s bloody illegal to take it.’