In Sandwick Will sat in his bedroom, keeping out of the way, until it was time to go to the party. Downstairs there was a muddle of preparation. His parents were always so disorganized, he thought with intolerance. Everything at Sandwick was so messy, chaotic. He would be glad to go back to school. He missed his friends, the conversations in the hostel late at night, his status as a sixth former. Here, the only debate was about sheep and fish. He wondered how the Drysdales, who had experience of more civilized ways, could stand it.

Outside in the passage he heard Mary screaming as Agnes tried to brush her hair.

Mother’s so weak, he thought, listening to Agnes’ fraught, ineffectual words, and so dependent on Dad. My wife will be independent, a person in her own right.

He picked up his guitar and began to play, humming a folk tune to the chords.

“I hate you,” Mary was screaming. “I hate both of you.”

I don’t hate them, Will thought. They’re kind and generous and I love them. But I can’t spend the rest of my life here. It would kill me.

“But you must come,” James said. “You promised.” His head was thundering with tension, anger, and compassion. “ You’ll enjoy it.”

“I would have enjoyed it once,” Melissa said. She took his hand and tried to make her voice sound reasonable. She had been an actress once. She tried to recall the skill, but knew that she sounded shrill and unnatural.

“Look,” she said. “ I have tried. I did want to come. But you can’t understand the panic, when I think of all those people in the hall. I can’t face it. They won’t miss me.”

He gave in immediately. He knew that there was no point in trying to persuade her. At first he had been sympathetic about her moods and depressions. There had been cause enough. Miscarriage after miscarriage. And she had been so desperate for a child. But that had been years ago.

She had not come from Kinness, not from any of the other islands. That had been part of the problem. When he first met her she had not seemed to have come from anywhere. She was getting off the big boat at the harbour on Baltasay. He was on his way home after National Service. She was very small and frail, wrapped up in a big coat. She had plenty of money.

“What brings you to the islands?” he had asked. She had been waiting on the quay, looking lost and unhappy. Her smallness and vulnerability had attracted him. The women on the island were strong and big-boned.

“I was expecting a friend,” she had said. “ He said that he’d meet me from the boat.”

“Who would that be, then? I know most of the folk here. I used to anyway.”