At about the time of the winter solstice, the sun is never seen on this island for forty days ... when they bring back word that the sun will shine upon them ... this is the greatest festival which the natives of Thule have. Among the barbarians who are settled in Thule ... the Scrithiphini ... do not till the land themselves, nor do their women do it for them ... The women join the men in hunting, which is their only pursuit ... For they do everything in common.

Procopius, ‘Thule’, History of the Wars (Byzantine Greek), sixth century AD

4
Zoe

Zoe cannot see Cwen from where she stands at the podium that is the witness box. The sea is a mere shimmer through the stained-glass window behind the judge’s head. But she half-shuts her eyes, and she knows Cwen is out there. Eva has gone but Cwen is still there, talking to her, encouraging her onward.

ZOE: She took me over to that island every year. It was our safe space.

One thing became abundantly clear at the inquiry:

Eva’s project tracks Zoe through the years.

Cassiopeia-like, they reflect each other, exactly. Zoe’s conception was the beginning of Eva’s re-education. Her genesis was all.

Throughout Zoe’s life, Eva watched her granddaughter with utmost care, as if she was an organism in a laboratory experiment, which, in a way, she was. She asked leading questions, she noted Zoe’s reactions to the leading women of the isles, she moulded her, and watched as she was moulded from afar. In a way, because of her other grandmother, Granny Ruth, the cards were stacked in Eva’s favour, where Zoe’s development was concerned; but reading through Eva’s notebooks, recalling the incidents she observed, the things Zoe said about her schoolfriends, the attitudes she displayed, some of which were absorbed from prevailing island culture, Eva evidently did manage to change the world she ruled. She banished, she upended, she demanded, and the world responded to her touch.

ZOE: I dream of my grandmother. The feeling of her. Or we are going somewhere together, in a hurry. These dreams are the ones I like. I like remembering her when she’s happy and busy. But more often she is trying to tell me something, and then I can’t hear what she is saying. Then I wake up struggling, and sweating. My mum says I shout in my sleep. These are more like nightmares. [Pause] I hate not knowing.

JUDGE: It must be hard, the absence of her body.

ZOE: [Weeps]

Eva Harcourt-Vane was one of three people who brought Zoe up. Her father, Eva’s son, absented himself from Zoe’s life the moment he spilled his seed inside her mum (in the pub playground, after closing time). Zoe tries not to think of it too often: