JUDGE: It was set up by—

JONNY: My wife and three other women set it up.

JUDGE: Did they get help? Seed funding, for example?

JONNY: Yes, from a fund called—Can’t remember the name.

JUDGE: Archipelago Women in Work?

JONNY: Possibly.

JUDGE: Is the shop going well?

JONNY: Very.

JUDGE: What difference has it made to your life, directly?

JONNY: ...Er. Don’t have to go to Aldi in Ayrness?

JUDGE: Who looks after the grand-kids while your wife is in the shop?

JONNY: I do. I do.

During all this time, Eva was scrupulous in keeping up appearances. That is, she remained, to the outside world, the same respectable-looking person as before; she had probably taught a quarter of the island’s population by the time she gave up teaching to become deputy principal. Despite the power she wielded, nobody guessed what she was doing, least of all her sons. She remained, until the end, discreet, secretive – a tale that unfolds inwards.

LUCIJA: I believe she worked from behind the scenes. You have to understand this. That’s why so many people are ignorant of the changes she helped bring about.

The question of how honourable it was to force through changes to a culture and society without that culture’s explicit knowledge and consent has come up repeatedly at the inquiry. These questions have not yet been satisfactorily answered—

STELLA: Nor have the majority of people ever explicitly consented to the patriarchal status quo.

—because they have no satisfactory answer.

LUCIJA: From that first time, I could see that there were many pressures in her life.

JUDGE: What were the pressures?

LUCIJA: Her sons, for example. They rang, one by one, that morning. I had gone for a walk in the garden. Mariam had cooked lunch, it was all ready and prepared. I came into the kitchen. Eva was at the table, her back to me, kneading bread. The phone rang, and she answered it on loudspeaker. That was always how she spoke to people. She just had to press a button, with her hands covered in bread dough, or soap suds. She never sat down, except in her study. I waited at the door, for the conversation to finish, but then the phone rang again, and then a third time.

– Mother, Sebastian tells me you have a Pakistani refugee living with you at the moment.

– Oh, hello, Henry, said Eva. Yes that’s right. And a nun, as of yesterday.

– A nun?

– Well, she stayed the night, she’s from the convent on Papa Astrid. But I’ve given her an open invitation to return. She’s from Bosnia.

– And the Pakistani?

– Yes?

– Is she a Muslim?

– I should think so, very likely.

– Mother! What are they all doing there all of a sudden? The Pakistani might be an illegal. The Bosnian might be.

– I don’t think so. Almost every Bosnian who came here between ’92 and ’95 was given ILR.

– ILR?