Nola grasped the rosaries in her apron pocket and let them slide through her fingers. ‘When will it end?’ she whispered, even though she half knew the answer. It was Mary Kate. Mary Kate held the key to breaking the years-old curse on the family.

‘I don’t know, but we will have to find a way. It can’t go on now that Shona and Daedio are both dead. There has to be an end to it,’ said Bridget. ‘A way to end the Malone curse once and for all.’

Chapter 11

Michael was complaining about his parched throat and aching limbs. It was early and he’d come out as usual to milk their lone cow in its byre at the back of the shop. Today, though, he had company. Mary Kate had slipped out of the house to help him, just like she used to as a child. It brought a lump to his throat, but he didn’t want her to see his upset. As he stood there, he saw not the new Mary Kate, the grown-up, but the little girl who used to chatter away to him as he worked. She’d done the same with her mother before she died.

Mary Kate stroked the cow’s flank and smiled as she snorted. ‘Hello, old girl,’ she said, breathing in the comforting aroma of warm cow, straw and fresh milk.

‘How was your woman, Cat, when you left Liverpool? Did she see you off?’

Mary Kate knew that something fleeting had taken place between Cat and her father when he’d come over to Liverpool. She herself had seen them in an embrace the day he left and the number of times Cat had casually enquired about him every time a letter arrived from home had left her in little doubt. ‘She’s still a widow, Daddy.’

Michael glanced up from under the brim of his cap. ‘Sure, she’s a fine woman, she should be married. What’s up with the men in Liverpool? They must be all pansies, the lot of them.’

Mary Kate had no idea what he was talking about and wondered would he say any more, to explain himself.

For a moment the only sound was of the rhythmic squirting of the milk as it hit the sides of the metal pail.

‘I know how you feel, Mary Kate,’ he said. ‘’Tis a terrible thing to have happened to you so young, to have lost the man who would have been your husband. I know it won’t be easy to carry that secret around in your heart. But wouldn’t every one of them here in Tarabeg be just delighted to know you’ve come back for no other reason than you missed the place – that will satisfy them enough, so it will. There isn’t a man or woman who lives here who doesn’t think it’s the last stop on the ladder to heaven. Why wouldn’t you miss it and be desperate to be coming home? The other story, you know… it might be bad for business.’