ZOE: I liked it. Nobody else in my family was discussing these important women questions with me, were they?

Zoe’s mum?

—very silent

Her dad barely spoke to her at all, and only, Zoe suspected/ absolutely knew, on Eva or Camille’s urging. (Hello Zoe – awkward shoulder punch – How you’ve grown! – then a series of questions about her progress in school, Do you really only take eight GCSES in the islands?)

All the reliable/un-sad things Zoe knew about her parents, in fact, she gleaned from Granny Ruth. Eva had nothing reliable to say on the subject, according to Ruth. Regarding her mum in particular, Zoe knew that people in general were guilty of something like a patronising attitude. Is Nina depressed? Zoe overheard the women saying to each other at Harcourt House. It was only when Zoe reached her eleventh year – by which time she was going to secondary school in Ayrness – that she came to understand that what Eva and her friends might consider as ‘being depressed’ just meant watching television every evening. The television was on from the moment her mother came home from work, it was on through teatime, and it was the only noise in the house as Zoe did her homework. It stayed on when Granny R arrived back home from the pub, although at this point the channel was switched to the News at Ten. Watching the news was the one thing Granny R insisted they do together every evening as a family. It was more important than family meals. It was knowledge. It was being informed. It was not labouring under popular misconceptions. Granny R would comment on the news loudly, as it happened, item by item. She liked Tony Benn, she hated Tony Blair, she loved Red Ken. Everything that had happened since then turned her stomach. She wouldn’t even utter the names of D/G/N.

As a matter of policy, Ruth didn’t criticise Zoe’s mainland father ever; never tutted when birthday presents arrived a day late, or voicemails about school went unanswered. She was unreserved in her scorn of his party, however.

AS WICKED AS THE TORIES

Because the archipelago had once been a Tory safe seat, and was now held by Zoe’s father’s party, Ruth often stressed to Zoe that they were living among the clearly apathetic, the morally wicked, the straight deluded. The sea couldn’t keep out the worst things – politicians such as Zoe’s father – but it did pretty well. Those stupid films with their muscly male heroes doing unlikely stunts – James Bond, Batman, Spider-Man; people had to go to Berwick to see them, ha. Or, the annoying kids’ craze for Go Go Hamsters – that only came in with Juliette Thomas, who was given one by her cousin in Dundee; it never caught on. The archipelago kept its old music, fiddle sessions in the pub, regular ceilidhs. Its love of whisky; its predominantly salt-fish diet.