Viola fills a glass, the squealing of the tap so loud in the silence of the cottage. She pours half of the water into a cereal bowl and places it on the floor for Dot, who is panting expectantly at her feet, then walks through to the tiny living room, eyeing the fine fissures in the walls, the quality of the carpet, the small pieces of furniture, as if she were a prospective tenant.

Through the oatmeal glow of the closed curtains, Viola can clearly make out the large paint splat coating much of the front window, the shadow of it like an oversized hand. She turns her attention to the charred stillness of the fireplace next, to the shelf above, where there is a framed family portrait. Peter Cedars, the gamekeeper, stands at the back. He is upright, smiling, would be almost unrecognisable if it weren’t for the distinctive crinkle of his eyes. Viola feels a tightening of her throat at the sight of him, at this strange, lighter version. He is holding hands with a woman – Susannah Cedars it must be, though she too is hard to recognise. Her hair is long in this picture, and Viola has only ever seen the woman from a distance, her face raw from crying.

Leah Cedars poses stiffly, soldierly, at the front, looking around thirteen or fourteen years of age. Her dress with its velvet yoke and ribbon at the neck belongs to a much younger girl. Her smile is wide but rigid, and she has a very late gap in her teeth at the side of her mouth. The boy beside her is eight or thereabouts, wearing tailored shorts, cut high on his skinny legs. He doesn’t fit in; he isn’t even trying to smile.

Viola finds herself staring at this boy, who is real and not real, wondering why she hasn’t met him yet, if she has failed to recognise his corresponding adult walking past her on the cobbles. But it is not just the anonymous boy that makes this picture feel off-kilter. It takes Viola a moment to realise what unsettles her: no one takes photos on Lark. On the mainland, every moment is captured, a phone is pulled from the pocket, and snap – happiness recorded, memories logged, shame inescapable forever.