‘How will they know where I am?’

‘Because we’ll leave a note in your own cottage telling them, that’s how. I’m not a fecking eejit. Now shut up. If I’m to be up all night getting your granddaddy into a boat, I need my sleep.’ He shuffled over to the wall of the cave, sat against it and failed to hear Mary Kate’s response.

‘My granddaddy?’ She turned her head towards McGuffey. The only granddaddy she knew was Seamus. She’d only ever met a brick wall when she asked about her mother’s family. Bee very occasionally spoke to her about her mother, but on the subject of Angela she never got a satisfactory reply. ‘Oh, you don’t want to be knowing about the past,’ Bee often said. ‘No good will come from it, and besides, I never wanted her to marry him anyway. Nasty man, he was.’

Mary Kate couldn’t take her eyes from his face. Her granddaddy? He was unshaven, dirty and in pain, and his face was gaunt, with large bags under his eyes, but in the line of his jaw and the blueness of his eyes, which had reflected the torchlight, she could believe that he was. Despite everything, she no longer felt scared. He was her family. Surely he would protect her.

Chapter 20

They had stopped off at a small hotel in Castlebar, which was where Matron had tasted her first Guinness. ‘I don’t think it will be replacing the sherry in the sideboard any time soon,’ she’d said to Dr Gaskell, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

‘Elsie might object if it did,’ he replied, taking a long draught from his own pot.

Matron had spent her evening writing out a list of questions for potential applicants to leave with the post offices along the way and had even designed her own posters. ‘What do you think?’ she said as she held one up for him to inspect.

Dr Gaskell removed his reading glasses from his jacket pocket and, leaning forward, squinted at the poster. ‘I think you’ve spelt “probationary” wrong,’ he said.

A look of horror crossed her face. ‘Never,’ she said as she turned the poster around and examined it herself. ‘That’s not spelt wrong, that is how you spell “probationary”.’

He grinned at her and took another sip of his drink.

‘Oh, you beast. Honestly! I’m going to tell your wife what a meanie you’ve been when we get back.’

Dr Gaskell studied her as she packed away her poster. It was doing her good to be away from St Angelus, and the prospect of finding a ready supply of new nurses willing to be trained and moulded to her own high standards had delighted her so much, there was a youthful glow to her cheeks.

‘Are you happy for Mr Keene to organise the initial selection of probationers from over here?’ he asked. ‘I know you, you don’t like to lose control of anything, but that is one thing you won’t be able to do, unless you want to be hopping back and forth on the boat every five minutes, and I can’t see you doing that. Once you’ve made your mind up, that’ll have to be it. You’ll have to put your trust in Mr Keene. He’s a professional himself and he won’t take kindly to you issuing him with instructions over the phone every five minutes.’