Everything about this exchange pleased me, Eva wrote in her notebook that night. She was pleased that at least one daughter-in-law felt comfortable enough to take liberties with her time and her house. She was pleased at the thought of employing the woman to teach Zoe about things she couldn’t learn in the islands. She was happy that Camille understood her emotional need to be hospitable. It had once been in the British spirit to welcome strangers. And Camille, who had read Beyond Illyria, understood this instinct.

What kindness you were shown in Bosnia, her daughter-in-law had said once.

Mother is repaying a cosmic debt, remarked Sebastian.

Because her son hadn’t read her book, Eva ignored him. But he was right: it was a debt. In Bosnia she had become indebted. Only Camille sympathised. Eva didn’t know why all the things she loved about Camille also made her worry. Perhaps she sensed that Camille was strong-headed enough, free enough, to cut Sebastian loose if his behaviour ever warranted non-forgiveness.

As Eva drove to the airport to fetch Camille’s patient, she rang Alice in London. ‘I’m off to collect a Pakistani woman from the plane,’ she shouted into her phone.

It scared Alice to think of Eva careering round those narrow island roads. They would take away her licence if she wasn’t careful.

‘Will you come up and meet her?’ Eva went on. ‘You can speak Urdu, can’t you?’

‘Well,’ Alice said. ‘I’m a bit rusty now.’

‘Camille sent her,’ Eva said, and spoke very fast about how offering women refuge was a central idea for her island community, the motiveless reaching out of one woman to another was, in its essence, the most ancient of all ancient ideas, it was what all the Neolithic temples—

‘I’ll try,’ Alice said. ‘I was planning to come up soon anyway. I’ve found an excellent Norse epic for you. And I’d like to speak Urdu to your friend. But I’ve got to go now, Eva.’

Eva had rung at six o’clock, even though she knew it was the witching hour for people with young children.