She put her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes, mouth ajar as if receiving the host.

‘I’m not going,’ she said, blinking her eyes open again. ‘But I knew that before I threw the photo in.’

‘Then why did you –’

‘It was always best to make your father feel like he had some say in a decision, even though he didn’t.’ She said it conspiratorially, leaning close, as if the whole trip to the well had been a game for my benefit, as maybe it had.

Then she burst into tears.

‘At the end of the day,’ she said, as we held one another under the chlorophyll glow of the trees, ‘I’m too scared to go. The future is for the young.’

On the last Saturday, Ben and I drank at the Anchor with Ruth French and Cat Walton – the outrageous act of two people who were secretly about to leave. Ruth and Cat were unaware of our plan; Ben wanted the school to think that he was following through on his contract for the whole year. He didn’t want any knowing glances from Ruth across the staff room ‘rousing suspicions’ – the suspicions of Miriam Calder and Mr Crane, I assumed, but also those of the Eldest Girls.

‘They’ll feel betrayed by my going,’ he said.

‘Why?’ I asked, and when he couldn’t formulate a response, I didn’t push him, because I knew I was betraying them too.

The cliques in the bar that Saturday night were more defined than ever. The Calders drank with the Cranes and the Bishys. Dellie Leven and Faith Moran and their boatmen husbands held an uneasy middle-ground. Eyes flickered to me – the madwoman. They were all poised, fielders manning their bases, waiting for a freak shot. I shaped my smile carefully for each group of people. This I would not miss: the constant need to locate myself, and manage the way the island saw me.

Saul Cooper appeared, late into the evening, taking a stool at the bar, sitting hooked over his drink, never giving us his face, speaking only to Jed. I looked to Ben and saw how his jaw tightened, controlling the testosterone fizz of a score unsettled.

Mary Ahearn also came in late, insisting that I bump a glass against hers in a way that made me suspect my mother had told her what was going on, despite her pledges to keep my departure a secret.

‘I hope you’ve got some gin in that juice,’ Mary said with a wink, sucking up the foam of her bitter. I had, just the one shot, for courage.