Joan handed Mrs O’Keefe the tea towel that hung over the range.

‘I really don’t think it is the right thing for her to do,’ Mrs O’Keefe continued, drying her hands distractedly, over and over. ‘Not yet, not for a month or two, until she is over the worst of the grief. I can’t think of anything worse just now, but we are going to have to let her go. I’ll be worried sick, I will.’

Jet gave a hopeful bark for more sausages, breaking the tension in the room.

‘What? You want more? Joan, was there anything left on that chicken carcass we are using for the soup today?’

*

The brown leather suitcase that Mrs O’Keefe had given to Mary Kate lay open on the bed. Even though it was still several days until her departure, she’d already nearly finished packing. It was a comfort somehow, like she was already putting Nicholas’s last request into action. With her palm she flattened her hand-me-down linen nightdress onto the top of the pile, the latest freshly laundered and neatly folded item to arrive up the stairs, still warm from the new electric iron Deidra had gone mad with.

Mrs O’Keefe’s sister, Lizzie, who was a similar size to Mary Kate, had arrived with two suitcases of clothes that were very much in place in the new Liverpool, the sort of things that women like Mrs O’Keefe were struggling to keep up with. ‘I needed a good clear-out,’ said Lizzie. ‘There’s everything in there, including a pair of red boots I love that killed when I wore them because they didn’t really fit me.’

Those boots now sat polished and waiting at the foot of the bed. Even the brass corners of the suitcase had been recently polished. If it moved, Deidra ironed or polished it; she’d even eyed up Jet’s wild and tangled coat after she had given him a bath.

Cat was helping Mary Kate pack and was sitting on the bed next to the case. Mrs O’Keefe was perched uncomfortably on the wooden chair next to the washstand. She had booked Mary Kate a berth on the night ferry to Dublin later in the week, but she was far from happy about it.

Mary Kate’s hand flew to her throat. ‘My ribbon, my heart!’

Both women’s eyes darted to her neck, where the emerald heart had lived, on the velvet ribbon that Nicholas had given her.

‘Where is it?’ asked Mrs O’Keefe. ‘When did you last wear it?’

She had worn it every day since Nicholas had given it to her and only ever took it off to bathe. She didn’t have to think for long; she remembered exactly where she’d left it. The days since his passing had been spent in a fog of tears and Valium, days dogged by bad headaches, a heavy heart and a pain deep in her belly that nothing would shift.

‘It’s by the bath. I left it there on the night he died, before we went to the hospital.’ She sobbed at the thought of it lying there abandoned, unworn, her most precious gift from Nicholas. She’d promised him she’d wear it every day, and now it wasn’t even in her possession. ‘I’ve got to get it back. It’s not staying in that house and there’s no way I’m going to Ireland without it. It’s all I have…’ She broke off, her voice choked.