From the start I hated his vulnerability, the way he tried so hard to please us. I made no attempt to hide my contempt, but John seemed not to notice. One afternoon I was in the barn, swinging on the tyre like a kid, when he declared himself in love with me. He stuttered over the words. I’ve never met anyone like you. It was all I could do not to laugh. Later I wondered if his infatuation was feigned, to anchor himself into our community. Perhaps he was like all the other drifters – there for the free bed. But I don’t think he was that calculating. Recently I found one of the poems he’d written to me. It was childish, embarrassing, but strangely moving. My parents would have served him better by sending him to a shrink.

On Friday nights I started going to the Lochmaddy Hotel. The public bar was a rough place of underage drinking and fights. The noise spilled out across the bay and I’m not sure how the tourists who stayed in the guest rooms got any sleep. John hated it, but sometimes he tagged along, an irritating shadow. One evening in late summer there was live music and the place was heaving before we arrived. Donald, the butcher’s son, was already steaming. When I went to the bar, he put his arm around me and tried to kiss me. If I’d been alone I’d have sworn and pushed him away, but suddenly I wanted to hurt John, to humiliate him, so I pulled Donald to me and kissed him again, very hard. The whole room cheered.

‘I think we should go,’ John said. ‘I’ll phone Peter for a lift.’

‘Go yourself!’ I stroked Donald’s cheek. I knew that John wouldn’t dare ask Peter to fetch him unless I was there too. Let him walk. I carried on drinking and flirting and laughing with the rest of the crowd.

Donald offered to drive me home. He was with some other boys and they all piled into a second car. Donald sobered up a bit when he got outside, and we set off first. All the way down the road the two cars chased and jostled, flashing their headlights and hitting their horns. Bored young men desperate for any excitement they could get. We were almost at Balranald when we saw John walking ahead of us. As we passed him, Donald wound down the window to jeer and I joined in.

I didn’t see what happened next. We were already round the corner near the cattle grid that led to our house. There was a horrible screech of brakes behind us, shouts. Donald stopped too and I got out and began to run, not towards the scene of the incident, but in the other direction. Home. Panicked and ashamed.

We never saw John again. My parents didn’t seem too troubled by his sudden disappearance. He was just another young helper who’d found the island life too hard. Lottie blamed me for rejecting him with so little sensitivity: ‘You drove him away.’