The image of Angela’s cottage flew into Mary Kate’s mind, the cottage where her mother had been born and had lived as a child. It was close to Bee’s house, on the cliff edge, looking out over the Atlantic towards America, and with nothing but the sound of the ocean below and the vast expanse of sky and ever-circling terns above. She had never met Angela, her maternal grandmother, but she loved her anyway, felt close to her.

She smiled. ‘I can’t think of anything better,’ she said as Bee set the rashers and egg down in front of her. ‘Angela’s cottage.’ This time she whispered the words, but in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. Everyone noticed it, but only Michael knew whose voice it was. It was the voice of her mother, Sarah.

He came and stood behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders, dropped a kiss on the top of her head and rubbed her back with his large calloused hands as though warming her, easing the strain.

Rosie sliced and buttered the bread she had fetched from the press and laid it on the side of Mary Kate’s plate, while Bee, seated opposite her great-niece and smiling at her, poured her tea. They had surrounded Mary Kate with love and care. ‘Angela’s cottage it is then,’ Bee said. ‘You really have come home, Mary Kate, and all the way back to the cottage your mammy was born in.’

Mary Kate didn’t know if it was the effect of her father’s hands, the reassurance of Bee’s words or just being back in the heart of her family, but it was as though a balm had been rubbed onto the pain of being without Nicholas. She already felt less alone and less desperate than she had for many days.

*

The number of villagers at the wake had begun to dwindle as those with lanterns led the way back into Tarabeg and to Paddy’s bar. The moon was shrouded in cloud and without the lanterns the path would have been dangerous. Everyone knew of someone who, the worse for drink, had lost their life down a bog hole on the side of a boreen, trying to find their way home in the dark.

In the manor house itself, some lay where they had fallen, but one thing was sure, the ghillie had come over more difficult in drink than he was without. Once the third barrel had been rolled out, he’d locked the cellar, refusing to allow them any more. He sprawled in front of the door, guarding the place and staggering to his feet whenever anyone came near, shotgun dangling by his side, pot in hand and managing not to spill a drop, as he shouted, ‘Away with you all or I’ll be calling for the guard and using the gun.’ Having finally dispelled the bonhomie and brought the wake to an abrupt end, he slid back down onto his backside.

Peggy had joined a train of people who’d found lanterns in the stables and were lighting the way home, leaving others to sleep it off in the straw, away from the ghillie. Peggy saw Pete at the rear and slowed her pace to match his. The weary revellers walked slowly, someone at the front singing a haunting wake song and others joining in one by one until the night air filled with their melancholy melodies.