Pax was incapable of speech, body shaking with laughter.

Ronnie stepped in. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Idy Dap,’ Luca said awkwardly.

‘Idy Dap Who?’ Ronnie asked obligingly and then, as Kes, Pax and finally Luca dissolved into a heap of snorting weeping, laughter, she held out her arms in confusion. ‘I don’t get it. Am I missing something? What’s funny about Idy Dap Who?’

The more she said it the harder they laughed, clinging onto each other, chests aching. Straightening up, eyes meeting, Luca and Pax were smiling so much their faces hurt.

Sometimes there’s no such thing as too soon she recalled his words with a jolt, identifying that long-lost feeling at last. It was something that had been far more dangerous and forbidden through her barren marriage than pity, empathy or even desire. More precious even than male friendship, into which she’d so gratefully boxed him. It was having someone who understood her.

Getting the punchline at last and starting to laugh, Ronnie bellowed, ‘“I did a poo”. Is that it?’

And they all collapsed into giggles again.

When she took Kes back to the cottage, the back door was open. A rubble trail of black crumbs led from garden through the kitchen and past upside-down cooling racks on the floor to the dog beds. These were covered with telltale cake and biscuit crumbs. The soggy-bottomed Victoria sponge was a memory, the cow-pat biscuits wolfed. Even two trays of black scones on the back step had been demolished.

Watching Pax take in the scene from beneath the table, Stubbs and Knott thumped nervous tails.

‘Mummy, please don’t cry.’ Kes gripped her hand.

‘I’m not crying.’ Why did the giggles keep resurfacing? ‘I think we’d better clear this up and have a quick wash, don’t you?’

‘Knock knock.’

‘Who’s there?’

‘Olive.’

‘Olive who?’

‘I love you too!’ he beamed and she hugged him tighter than ever. He smelled very strongly of Shetland.

*

Carly worked with absolutes: I will be there, we will do this, this is what is happening. The vague time-keeping of village life maddened her; the ‘whenever suits you’, ‘we’ll be around this week’, ‘sometime tomorrow morning’ fluidity left her lost at sea.

Accepting a job with Ronnie Percy fitted into that fluid category. They’d vaguely agreed Carly would help out on the yard some weekends – but she’d heard nothing more. Whereas writer Petra was surprisingly timetabled, Ronnie had yet to reply to a text, didn’t answer her phone and was never on the yard when Carly called in. She was starting to think she’d imagined the job offer, and she felt awkward about Bridge inviting her along today – especially given she hadn’t found Pax Forsyth too friendly the previous time.

Pushing their buggies around the village green towards the stud, flecks of rain spitting sideways at them, Carly listened as Bridge chattered too fast and loud about how great her new job was going to be, how mad Aleš was driving her, and how funny and down-to-earth Pax was.