When John Lansdown first moved to the island, every trip to the mainland was a challenge. There was no track. The Land Rover was driven south from Gillibry over steep green rocks, through seaweed-filled pools on to the shore. There, the sand could be soft and the gullies deceptively deep. If the tide had not ebbed sufficiently there was a danger of being stuck halfway across the channel. It had made him nervous. The Land Rover was his responsibility. Now he knew the way and was used to the Land Rover. Only in thick fog was he still wary. Automatically he counted the seals on the sandbank and estimated the number of waders on the shore. He hoped to persuade the others to try the new cannon net and would need to know what they could expect to catch. His reaction to the September committee weekend was ambiguous. The committee members were competent ringers and knew the observatory system. Some of them were friends. It was easier, perhaps, than having a group of strangers to stay, certainly easier than the schoolchildren who were the observatory’s usual visitors, but he always felt that he was on trial throughout the weekend and that the committee was assessing his competence to run the place. He knew that Elizabeth felt the same. She supervised all the domestic arrangements in the observatory, and though it was organized like a youth hostel, she cooked three meals a day for the visitors. The thought of Elizabeth brought back the pleasure of anxious excitement which he had been feeling since she had told him that she was pregnant. She had insisted that no one else should know. He wanted to tell everyone he met—it meant after all that now she really belonged to him—but she had a kind of superstition about it. It was natural, he supposed, because of the miscarriage she had suffered when she was married to Frank. He was certain that nothing would go wrong. How could it, when things were going so well for them? They both loved the island. In the precarious world of natural history he had a secure job. Charlie Todd might be an eccentric neighbour, but he subsidized the Gillibry Trust’s funds so that although John and Elizabeth were not well paid, they received more than they would have done from any other conservation charity; and their home was reasonably warm and well maintained.

He turned the Land Rover sharply, and then he could see the people waiting for him at the quay. What can they be talkung about? I thought. They’re all so different. What can they have to say to each other?

Carefully, aware that they were watching, he drove the Land Rover from the sand on to the stone slipway. It had been a jetty once. Ships had sailed from there to the Armada. Now the estuary had silted up. There was sand and saltmarsh, and the people waiting there with their bags and suitcases looked slightly ridiculous. He jumped down and opened the back of the Land Rover.