Alice had already travelled that year to many islands, and it was always the same, whenever she got back home. Tell someone in London you’ve just been in Shetland, and they will, very likely, furrow their brow; mention Anglesey or Alderney at a dinner party in Dorset and a blankness overtakes the room; say that you’ve lived in Orkney and people hear: Auckland. Often, English people – or their grandparents – have an island in their history, a favourite Hebridean hideaway, the childhood memory of an endless Scilly summer. Before cheap flights abroad, Londoners took the train to Thanet, and Liverpudlians summered on the Isle of Man. But this is for sure: in England, acquaintance with one island does not translate into geographical knowledge of the rest. (Plus, there persists an extreme vagueness with regard to Scotland.)

It was no different with Eva’s archipelago. As soon as she began going there regularly, Alice got used to explaining, in the face of repeated perplexity: North Sea, north of Lindisfarne, English–Scottish border. Placing it for people, with slightly patronising glibness. Between the two Berwicks? Well, due east of the mouth of the Tweed. And then, making a geopolitical point: You see, while the land border is fixed, the sea border keeps shifting.

Her daughter refined it further: Mummy boat, Mummy sea, Mummy-pelago.

Mummy-Wonderland, said the child’s father, just a little too wryly.

Now, of course, Alice can see that Eva sacrificed too much. She risked her life – and left them all alone. She left Zoe alone. Sometimes, Alice wakes in the night, fearing Eva’s ire, if she ever returns. She hopes (but isn’t sure) that Eva would have understood her decision to collect, not just lost female epics, but also, where appropriate, accounts of Eva’s work, with diverging opinion from family and friends. Although she is glad that Eva acted as she did, when she stops to think about it, it sometimes takes away her breath. She herself wouldn’t dare. What to make of Eva’s sons, for example, who are now claiming that by giving away all their money, she was acting in the least motherly of ways?

JUDGE: What do you have to say on this point?

ALICE: What can I say? Yes, arguably this is so. She did not act in the way society expected in their regard.