Climbing the stairs, she thought she heard the front door opening, but, stopping to listen, there was no other sound. It must be the wind, rattling the letter box. She could always tell when the wind was northerly because of that particular noise. The airing cupboard was on the attic landing, between Margaret’s room and the shelf where she placed extra sachets of coffee and tea, a tin of home-made biscuits. Beside the shelf was a small fridge with a carton of fresh milk inside. There were hospitality trays in each of the rooms, but she liked her guests to feel welcome. It was the small touches that brought them back. They certainly didn’t come for the location; there was little that was attractive about Harbour Street. An arched window looked out across Malcolm’s yard and beyond the fisheries to the sea. It was still snowing. She saw the flakes billow in a triangle of light shed by a street lamp. Out at sea a light buoy flashed red. Her husband had worked on the rigs and she still felt a mixture of guilt and grief when she thought of the vast space beyond her doorstep.

Kate stood for a moment and listened to the music in her head. She coaxed the tune to life, hummed it. A song for winter, clear and spare. For love in winter. And again she thought of Stuart and the unlikely infatuation that had hit her in middle age; she was breathless and astounded, aware that at this moment she’d sacrifice everything for her new man. He was more important than Ryan’s nightmares, his prowling through the neighbourhood at night like a feral animal, unable to sleep, his occasional outbursts of temper. More important than Chloe’s exam results and her terrifying ambition. Stuart, old and wiry, more like a mountaineer than a musician, had brought Kate back to life.

On her way back to the flat she bumped into George Enderby by the front door. He had snowflakes clinging to his woollen overcoat and his big, good-natured face beamed down at her. ‘What do you think, Kate? Snow for Christmas. The kids will be excited.’ He had one of those rich, posh, southern voices that made her think of a politician or an actor.

Kate thought that her kids were super-cool these days, and they’d consider building snowmen to be beneath them. But George was so innocent with this fantasy of a perfect family life that she couldn’t disabuse him.

‘Yeah,’ she said.