It is 1985, and we are in a town in Ireland. Christmas is approaching, a busy season for Bill Furlong, a supplier of wood and coal. Early one morning, he delivers an order to the local convent – and comes face to face with the darkness and complicit silence of a town under the control of the church.

In a small town in Ireland, Bill Furlong tries to fulfill his customers' orders as the year comes to an end. At the helm of a small company and father of five daughters, he has managed to build his life on his own. His mother, a servant, became pregnant at fifteen but, unlike what usually happened, she was not thrown out of the house with her baby. In this respect, Bill was luckier than other children. On Christmas Eve, Bill makes his last delivery to the convent – where, under the pretense of educating them, the nuns exploit girls of "loose morals" and make them work in the convent's laundry. What Bill discovers there, and the difficult decision it leads him to, is narrated by the author with such restrained grace that this beautiful text becomes both enigmatic and shocking.

A masterpiece that was rightly praised by critics.