As autumn turned to winter, the women of the commune were still boasting to friends in the city about the exhilaration of the elements, the goddess-like feeling of the wind as it prodded and pummelled. But island winters are long: five incessant months of rain, random hailstorms, episodic deep snow. In spring, a storm washed out the paltry beginnings of their kitchen garden; a gust mockingly lifted the roof off the chicken shed. Nobody fixed the shed for three days, and the fowl got ill; one of the pullets was found with its face chewed off by rats. When the weather cleared, Betty took their rowing boat across to Lerston to buy some whisky. The currents that flow between the islands funnelled her out to sea; luckily, some creel fishermen saw her, and dragged her on board. She was so cold, she had to be helped out of her wet clothes and taken to the hospital in Ayrness, naked, wrapped in one of their coats.

The scare repatriated Betty. Gayatri and Judy’s visits to the city became longer and longer. Gloria, having fallen for the plumber’s brother, moved to North Berwick. Mary moved in with her girlfriend in Edinburgh, Audre moved back to the continent, Simone got a job in New York, and Christine became a nun. Soon only Donna was left. She sold the island to a surgeon from Glasgow before the summer was out.

Eva was upset; but the commune’s failure didn’t diminish her admiration. The nine women had offended and alienated other islanders – hostile columns appeared in the local press, hostile things were overheard by Eva at dinner parties, in the shops. The women had failed; but each failure is also a small advance, an exploration.

ALICE: She understood, suddenly, how it should be done. Keep it quiet. Don’t tell anybody.

JUDGE: Isn’t that dishonest?

ALICE: Maybe. [Shrugs] No, I don’t think so. She began tentatively mapping out a possible future. We found a note scribbled on the back of a bill from her garage.

JUDGE: We?

ALICE: Zoe and I. It was stuffed into one of her recipe books in the kitchen. Elizabeth David. Five acres of land to be given to every island-born girl at birth. Mandatory re-education for men aged seven to seventy-seven. Christmas pub quiz, question number 1: Why is ‘gynotopia’ not listed as a word in either the OED or Merriam-Webster? Answer: Because men have erased such places from our memories.

JUDGE: She had radical ideas.

ALICE: I’m not sure if radical is the right word. She wanted to change things without any of the usual associated conflict. Her ideas were practical, secretive . . . but she could never have put them into place, I don’t think, if she hadn’t been widowed.

JUDGE: The money?

ALICE: The money. But also, to be fair, the headspace.