Islanders who might not normally have considered squeezing themselves into their black funeral suit with its old-fashioned bum flaps, and ironing a bright white cotton shirt – such as Eva’s dentist, for example – or brushing the dust off a heavy tweed overcoat which smelt strongly of mothballs, and removing from the buttonhole this November’s poppy – such as the head of Ayrness High’s Board of Governors – for a person with whom they weren’t exactly on dining, let alone regular-telephoning terms, nevertheless made this effort. Women who, during Eva’s life, had not counted themselves her friends, felt moved by the articles they read in the paper. They recalled chance meetings with tenderness. The statements put out by Inga at the council, the discussions on the radio, the usual internet community chatter, all testified to Eva’s general goodness. When a call went out from somewhere to bring shells to the church, as a symbol of how Eva was lost to the sea, and to whom she belonged, every mourner who knew held a shell in their hands to leave at the foot of the altar.

The most surprising people found themselves depositing a shell. The dean of the abbey. The headmistress of Ayrness High. Barbara Anderson from the museum. Nothing had prepared the sons for this spontaneous symbolic act. It was an upsurge of island unity. Nobody had told them to bring shells. There they stood, empty-handed, out of touch.

For even though she was Jewish, it was the dominant local cult that claimed her. Her children had been christened in that church, her husband buried in the churchyard, and it was in this church with its paintings of Isa on the wall, that her sons chose to stage her farewell. Octavia, Eva’s daughter-in-law, chose the hymns and the readings, in consultation with Henry and George, and ordered flowers and food for the wake with the help of Harriet. Seb was not consulted – because nobody was speaking to him, and both brothers and both their wives were glad that Camille, despite having come to the islands for the service, had not come up to the house beforehand, or after. Firstly, it gave them an excuse to cut her out. Secondly, it was Camille who had sent her syphilitic patient to Harcourt House. Thirdly, it was Seb who had brought Harcourt to the attention of that patient’s crazy Islamist husband. Fourthly, it was Camille who was leaving Seb, when she ought to stand by him – they could work through this, that’s what everybody did – but basically, yes, they were both totally toxic, and the sooner she cleared out, the better. Fifthly, it was almost Christmas. They would get the memorial done, and then they would go home to London, and try to take the grandchildren’s mind off it, with lots of presents, and a stint somewhere foreign. It was freezing up in the islands.