As Colette sat down in her chair the woollen roll-neck and scarves she was ruched in bunched up on her chest like plumage. She was still a handsome woman, with coal-black tresses and skin so white the bright blue of her eyes shrilled against it. But her body had become slack and thick with drink, her face riven by the lines of a much older woman.

‘You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve started early,’ she said, taking a sip from her glass. ‘I would have offered you one, but I don’t suppose you’re the kind for drinking in the afternoon.’

‘A cup of tea is just grand,’ Izzy said.

Colette took up her pouch of tobacco. Izzy watched Colette’s hands tremble as she swaddled the little nub of tobacco with the paper.

Izzy rubbed the tips of her fingers against her palms. ‘I was doing a bit of a clear-out and I thought you might need a few things – nothing much, just some old crockery and blankets and things to make the place a bit more homely.’

Colette tossed the pouch onto the table. She struck a match. For just a second the papery skin of her face lit up. She took a drag. ‘Well, I hope my squalid conditions have made you feel better about yourself.’ Colette’s cigarette had not lit properly and she flicked at the tip with the flame of her lighter.

Izzy shifted in her chair and sat up, placing her palms together and pinning them between her knees. She cast a look around the room. ‘It’s very peaceful up here. You must get a lot of work done.’

‘Oh. It’s peaceful, all right. For peace comes dropping slow.’ She performed the line with a deep, weighted tenor. ‘But why are you really here, Izzy?’

‘Well, I’ve decided to go away for a while.’

‘Have you indeed.’

‘I’m going to go and stay with my sister for a couple of weeks. If truth be told, things haven’t been good between James and me for some time and I’ve finally decided to do something about it. I should have done something a long time ago but—’

‘Well, there’s your first mistake.’

‘What?’

‘Leaving the house – when you leave the house you relinquish control, you have no rights. And so you go off to your sister’s house and return in a few weeks – what’s going to be different about your situation then?’

‘Things couldn’t carry on the way they were.’

‘What are you talking about? Things don’t get better than the way you have them. You have a home and money and children. So what if your husband’s a bit of a bully, they all are in their own way. Do you want for anything? No. You have a house full of stupid statues and figurines that are worth more money than some people see in a lifetime.’

‘I want my independence.’

‘Independence? Independence? This is what independence looks like, Izzy.’

‘You went about it all wrong.’

‘So you think that if I was good, honest, virtuous, and true like yourself none of this would ever have happened to me?’

‘No, I’m not talking about that, you should have seen a solicitor.’

Colette laughed.

‘And you should give up that old drink while you’re at it.’ Izzy pointed at the glass and quickly withdrew her hand. ‘Anyway, I didn’t come up here to give you advice.’

‘No, you came to give me your cast-offs.’ A smile pulled at the edges of Colette’s mouth. ‘So why are you telling me all of this? Have I inspired you?’

‘Well, I suppose I haven’t treated you as well as I should.’

‘By ignoring my phone calls?’

Izzy sat right on the edge of her seat now, her hands sliding back and forth across her knees. She looked out the window at the sea. The late-afternoon light had pooled at the horizon under a brow of dark cloud.

‘Well, to be honest, Shaun arrived at James’s office one morning in the new year and told him about our trips to the beach and Enniskillen. I don’t know how he knew, but he knew. And on top of that he told James the whole town thought me and Father Dempsey were having an affair. As you can imagine, we had the most unmerciful row over everything. We’ve hardly spoken since. I was given express instructions to cease all contact with you, which I should have ignored of course, kept coming to the classes but . . . well, I didn’t have much fight left in me.’

Colette held her cigarette over the ashtray. She paused for a moment before tapping the ash off. ‘I thought Shaun had something to do with it, all right.’

‘Oh, as I said to James – any problems we had, we had before you and Shaun came along.’

‘But by the sounds of it you’d become closer to Father Dempsey than the village elders deemed appropriate,’ Colette said, raising her eyebrows.

Izzy sighed, opening her eyes wide and shaking her head. ‘Nothing happened. Do you really think I’d have an affair with the parish priest? Jesus, I’d need to drink your whole bottle of vodka before it would even occur to me. No. We became good friends, that’s all, and James became jealous. He thought he was interfering.’

‘Well, priests are good at that, aren’t they? For all they know about marriage they have no end of advice on the subject,’ Colette said.

‘He wasn’t like that. He wasn’t sanctimonious or dogmatic or full of shite about the Church. You could just talk to him.’

‘But surely you have friends. Could you not talk to them?’

‘And tell them what? Tell them you’re lonely? Tell them you’re unhappy? Who wants to know, Colette? Who has so little going on in their own life they need to hear that? People would only be talking about you. You know what this town is like – you can’t even be friends with a priest but they think you’re sleeping with him.’

‘Well now, I’m not saying you were having mad passionate sex with the man. Although good for you if you were. But one minute you were spending every waking hour with him and the next thing he was gone.’

‘Well, I know as much about that as you do. He never said a word to me before he went.’

‘You’re not trying to tell me James Keaveney had nothing to do with Father Dempsey’s removal from his post?’ Colette said. ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

‘Oh, some other parish,’ Izzy said, with a throw of her head.

‘You needn’t pretend to me like he meant nothing to you. I can see you cared about him.’

Izzy felt her shoulders soften. She allowed her arms to fall loosely by her sides. ‘It was just nice to have someone to talk to,’ she said.

‘Oh, Izzy, don’t be a fool. We are stupid, aren’t we? Stupid, stupid women. We’ll go with anyone who’ll listen to us.’ Colette tried to stand up but fell back heavily in the chair. She looked defeated for a moment but made another effort and managed to haul herself to her feet. ‘Will you have a drink now?’ she asked.

‘No, Colette. I won’t. I should get going.’

Colette went to the counter and sloshed more vodka into her glass. She walked back to the chair and dropped down into it, spilling half the drink over her jumper.

She held the glass out in front of her. ‘Arise and go now, Izzy Keaveney. Forget about him. Go home to your husband. I absolve you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,’ she said, making the sign of the cross with the glass, the vodka lapping up against the sides of it. ‘Go home and be forgiven, Izzy,’ she said, her voice reducing as the glass drew closer to her mouth. ‘It’s very easy to become a ghost in your own life.’

Izzy got up and walked to Colette. She stood over her and laid her hand on her shoulder. ‘And will you do something for me, Colette – will you mind yourself?’

She could only see the top of Colette’s head from where she stood but she watched her give a shallow nod. Then she placed her palm against Colette’s cheek and allowed her to rest the weight of her head there. She felt Colette’s warm tears meet her hand.

‘Ah now, Colette,’ she said, rubbing her back. ‘There’s no need for that. You’ll see everything’s going to work out all right for you.’

‘I’m six weeks gone,’ Colette said.