CAMILLE: Not explicitly. Of course the institutions to which our lives were shackled, Seb’s especially, are so outdated – antique, relics from an obsolete past – sometimes you get the feeling that nothing will change for another thousand years. Whereas in the islands, things are different. I had felt it for a while without being able or ready to articulate the difference. Women in charge of so many things; Zoe speaking in a way that was quite unusual, because of the schooling she was getting – no witchy Hansel and Gretel; every mention of a brilliant misogynist, Picasso, for example, coming with a tragic caveat. Eva’s sons saw their mother as guardian of their ancestral home; they didn’t appreciate that she was a force for transformation. She reminds me of the rip currents my parents used to warn me of in Senegal. An entire body of water, moving the other way from how it seems on the surface. That’s what Eva was doing: carrying us far from where we had started. So when my patient appeared before me, I immediately thought of Eva. In London, somebody in this difficult position could easily get lost, could drown. Whereas Eva, I knew she would react with love. I rang her right away.

‘Eva,’ Camille said – making her mother-in-law’s name sound like Ever – ‘I have a patient, a Pakistani woman, Africa-descended, with a V-stone, just like yours.’

‘Really?’ said Eva. ‘How amazing.’ And she began to tell Camille how she had recently been thinking more and more, since their conversation, about the V-stone as an international symbol of ancient female wisdom, and the respect for it which had once prevailed in the world. She was working with this woman, Alice, on a compilation of women-centred epics, and the V-stone was the beginning of that; it fitted in so perfectly with the idea of these islands as a globally-significant catalyst. The V-stones were their talisman, part of the empowerment offered to women anciently and now—

‘Can I send her to see you?’ Camille said. ‘She’s a teacher.’

‘A teacher?’ said Eva.

‘She’s catching the afternoon flight,’ Camille said. ‘Can you meet it? If not I’ll give her money for the taxi.’

‘Is she staying a long time?’

‘It’s your choice,’ Camille said, and sketched the details of her patient’s situation. ‘She could teach Zoe, no? That might please Red Ruth.’

This was their name for Zoe’s other grandma.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Eva.

‘Yes,’ said Camille. ‘It’s like that. She’s dressed in green and is carrying a small overnight bag.’

‘Well, all right,’ said Eva. ‘And what about my stone, can you send it back with her?’

‘No,’ said Camille, ‘I think not. Just in case she . . . you know, gets lost. But that refuge you’ve been talking about establishing—’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Eva.