I was anxious for Granda to be away, away to sea on the Lily Maud this night, and I counted the hours till dusk. Unty Jinna and Unty Leebie would help him down to the boatie shore with the lines and I would watch from the roof of the netting shed and think myself blessed to be the accursed reid-heid.

But before then, there was much to do, to make ready for Granda to be away, and his temper was so bitter that I wondered how it ever was that I had thought to see a softer shade in it when he was laid up last winter.

I staggered through the door with washing just dried on the gorse up behind the village: Granda’s blankets and ganseys, his thick seaboot stockings and woollen combinations. He was standing by the hearth, and watched as I unwound the clothes and linens that I’d wrapped around my arms to stop them flying off in the wind.

Need mendin’, some of those ganseys do. An’ where’re my gloves, quinie? What have ye done with my gloves? An’ ye’ve took my tobacco somewhere. New tin, just new. Where’s that new tin, eh?

I don’t know, do I? I said rudely, and got a raised hand for my trouble. A warning.

After sorting the washing and looking for Granda’s gloves and tobacco, I sat by the fire with my needles, wool and a pile of ganseys.

Fetch me tea, quinie, he said.

And while I made tea, Granda was grumbling still about the tobacco, which wasn’t the tin he wanted, and what had I done with the new tin?

Just when I thought I could take no more of his mumping, he fixed me with a sly look I’d seen before when he had something particular he wanted to say.

Ye needn’t think to be leavin’ like your sister do. Another limmer this family canna have. Ye’ll be here, in this house, an’ stayin’ here, quinie.

I sucked in my breath, shocked. My ill prospects of ever leaving were enough to make me weep, but to call Kitta such a name! His own granddaughter!

Aye, ye needn’t be looking like that, quinie. Your sister has shamed this family, shamed us all with her runnin’ about with sailors when she should be in kirk and prayin’. Runnin’ about an’ takin’ gifts. That’s what she says, eh. Do she, eh. Gifts? Pah! A price like another, an’ just another name for it.

I opened my mouth but he was gathering steam.