Back at their encampment, the girls packed everything up. Then they sat under the oak tree in the drizzle, looking out at the sea, where there was a rainbow over Cwen, as Tara rolled long joints, and Stella played them her new God-womb composition. They smoked the joints with a lot of giggling, letting Zoe have a little puff. She felt a pleasant drifting-apart of her body and her head.

‘It’s mandrake leaf,’ Tara said. ‘Ravi’s mum gets it for us.’

‘So,’ Stella said, after a long, even more drifty silence, ‘you said you wanted to introduce us to your grandmother.’

‘Did I?’ said Zoe. Had she? She didn’t remember having said that. Maybe she had.

‘After having camped on her land,’ said Stella.

‘Oh, yes.’ Zoe tried to imagine how a meeting with Eva might go. It might go nicely.

‘Can we please go there now?’ said Tara.

Zoe didn’t normally invite her secondary schoolfriends back to her grandmother’s house. It was private, away from school, away from the other islanders she didn’t quite belong to. On the other hand, it was eleven o’clock already. Saturday mornings were when women from the islands dropped in, to see Eva, which meant that she was always at home, but you never knew who else might be there, too.

‘I don’t know if she’s in,’ Zoe said.

‘But it’s open house on Saturdays,’ Tara said.

‘Not since Mariam arrived,’ Zoe said. ‘Mariam is from Pakistan and—’

‘We know about Mariam,’ said Stella.

‘The floods there are happening because we are causing climate change here,’ said Zoe.

‘Very likely,’ said Stella. ‘Well, let’s go and meet her.’

‘Let’s go right now,’ said Tara.

‘It’s unpredictable,’ said Zoe. ‘She might be there, she might not—’

‘We’ll risk it,’ said Stella.

They walked down through the wood towards the house. When they emerged from the trees, into the field, and saw the house below them, Stella and Tara both said, at the same moment, ‘Wow.’

Zoe felt a thrill of pride but also embarrassment at the extravagance of this island mansion. She had a sudden vision of the house being rebuilt, stone by stone, by women.

‘It’s going to be such a great resource,’ said Stella.

‘My Granny Ruth doesn’t like it,’ Zoe said. ‘She says it’s over the top and exploitative.’

‘She’s probably right,’ said Tara.

They walked across the field.

‘She might be in her study,’ Zoe said. ‘Wait here, I’ll find out.’

Zoe hardly ever entered Eva’s study. Even Marcin, the cleaner, never touched the desk, or emptied the wastepaper bin. While Tara and Stella unburdened themselves of their rucksacks in the porch, Zoe tapped on the study door.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me, I’m here with my friends, Stella and Tara, they want to say—’

‘Go through to the kitchen. I’ll join you there. Zoe, will you make the tea? There are biscuits.’