The priest was putting on his liturgical stole and didn’t seem to notice Catrin’s sarcasm. She headed for the kettle.

Catrin loved her parents dearly, but this kowtowing to the Church did her absolute head in. She wasn’t actually an atheist like Tom, she was something – she just didn’t know what any more. When she was little she’d loved all the drama of going to Mass, the dressing up for her first communion, inventing sins to take to confession and repeating endless Hail Marys in quick succession like a lucky mantra. But as she’d grown older, Catrin’s faith had begun to crumble. Sure, she liked the positive side of Jesus – he seemed like a nice man with good values: kind, compassionate, forgiving. But the rest of it? No, thanks. All that guilt and retribution. So they came to a family compromise: Catrin would continue to go to Mass until she turned eighteen, but after that it was only fair she should be allowed to make an adult decision. Seeing as she was now, well, an adult.

She’d never told anyone, not even Judith and Lana, but the first week she didn’t go to Mass, she lay on her bed and cried. Was she tempting Fate? Was something awful going to happen to her now that she’d become … actually, what had she become? A heathen? A God-less monster? The Catholic guilt with which she’d grown up was not going to be easy to shift. Her parents never once tried to persuade her to join them on Sunday mornings, and she appreciated that. But then when Christmas came, she couldn’t stay away from Midnight Mass. ‘I feel such a hypocrite,’ she’d said to Judith, who couldn’t understand why.

‘I don’t see what the big deal is. Can’t you just go to church as and when you feel like it? You know, a bit like Aerobics?’

‘Maybe,’ Catrin had said. But it didn’t sit comfortably with her.

The kettle clicked and Catrin made the tea. ‘So, it’s this afternoon you’s off then, is it, Kate?’ Father O’Leary had never got her name right in eighteen years.

‘That’s right, Father,’ Liz answered on her daughter’s behalf.

‘Actually, my name’s Catrin,’ she mumbled pointlessly, as Liz jumped in over her.

‘Huw’s taking them to Bristol airport at one and they’re flying straight to Athens, would you believe!’ Since Catrin had ‘abandoned the Church’ her mother was presumably nervous of letting her answer the priest of her own accord, in case she began spitting blasphemy in an Exorcist-inspired tirade.

‘Ah, Athens. Crackin’. Well, now, here’s the thing …’

Catrin was bizarrely fascinated by the way Father O’Leary spoke. As if he was jabbing them all on the arm with his Cardiffian-accented utterances. Short, staccato and stilted. Like a series of dotted quavers on a music manuscript. He carried on, taking his crucifix out of his bag as he spoke and placing it delicately on the kitchen table. Liz surreptitiously removed Tom’s box of Shredded Wheat. ‘Your mum and dad – they wants me to say a little prayer for you, alrigh’? Just to send you on your travels, like …’