The name of the island – Lark – had called out to them through the fog that embraced its shores, through the figurative fog that had descended on the mainland, shrouding Viola and her mother. The island was to be their salvation.

In the aftermath of the disaster back home, when fate had taken its violent strike, Viola’s mother left the radio playing in the kitchen lest a silence should settle, the kind that invited in thoughts. A short feature had come on air – an inconsequential piece, a slice-of-life peppered with unusual accents and the cries of gulls. Unspoilt, said the presenter, in a voice that was too worldly and wry. A place where children grow up at one with nature, in all ways safe.

Viola’s mother had looked up from her cold and forgotten tea and she had listened.

To journey to Lark, said the woman on the radio,is to take a step back in time.

At these words, Deborah Kendrick had risen, like a miracle, from the kitchen table, from the bleary depths of misery. She made immediate enquiries, ones that quickly transformed into plans and definite dates. She had told Viola in all certainty that their tragedy had been preordained, was unavoidable. That she was now willing to believe that fate could also be benevolent was a good thing. Wasn’t it?

Forms were filled out, promises were made. All newcomers were assessed, medically, ethically, and asked to pledge how fruitful they would be, both in the practical sense and the biblical. Lark was a religious community: participation was expected, baptism a stipulation. Then, there was a house to pack up, a past life to give away, workaday tasks in which Viola’s mother found a much-needed catharsis and impetus. Boat tickets were booked – the only way to reach this new existence, this forgotten British isle. They sold the car and boarded a train, out of the Home Counties to the coast.

That June they embarked on three sickly days at sea.