‘Ah, that?’ Her mood changed. She laughed but turned to go out again. Her first customers of the day had come in.

While she was away, I opened my notebook and turned on the tape recorder. I had learned to be ready at all times. As we worked my grandmother would talk. I would catch what I could, jot down when I could, remember what I could. At the end of a day I’d gather the bits and pieces from tape, jottings and memory, and type them up.

‘I don’t want to marry you, Aki,’ she said on that morning. ‘With the place falling down around us, goods to collect, unloading, stacking and packing to be done and deliveries to make, an absent husband is the last thing I need.’

With little money coming in and people’s debts building, Oriwia thought it would’ve made sense to stop trading and shut up shop, but knew Dad Jimmy wouldn’t like it. Here he had friends and relatives who came and sat with him, got him laughing, shifted him about when he needed it, pushed a whisky into him if they had any. In the good times the shop had been a meeting place for everyone, a lively gossipy place full of life and laughter. She believed the good times would come again, people would have regular work or there’d be markets for what they produced and their debts would be paid. She’d get her roof fixed. She’d make tea and scones for customers.

Anyway, she felt that if she walked away from it all she’d be walking away from her mother’s land and the memory of her mother. That made her afraid.

‘Muscle on the other side of the world is of no use to me,’ she’d said to Aki as she poured tea and began helping Jimmy with his cup. Aki had nothing to say, but she noticed he could hardly keep the smile off his face. ‘If I was in love with you,’ she’d said, ‘nothing I’ve said just now would matter. And if you were in love with me, you would’ve left the boats long ago and we’d have a couple of kids by now. And, if you were in love with me,’ she added, ‘you wouldn’t be sitting there looking so relieved.’

Aki burst out laughing and so did Oriwia. Even Jimmy joined in, dribbling, choking and nearly coming out of his chair. Chappy was sitting there smiling without understanding a thing. What Oriwia could see was that Aki was in love with someone, somewhere in the world. She didn’t ask him about that, but did envy him because she believed in love. She saw that she had somehow freed him.