Katrina decided to concede. And it was true that usually John would withdraw before he came, though not always. Katrina had given up trying to remind him. He said it ruined the moment, and sometimes it made him angry. A woman shouldn’t be telling a man what to do at a moment like that. Katrina had realized by now how sensitive John could be about certain things. If anything, this only made her love him more, this vulnerability at his core. His mother, from what little John had said about her, had a lot to answer for. Katrina made a silent decision to protect John’s feelings wherever possible. He wasn’t alone anymore; she would look after him.

Anyway, Katrina couldn’t feel too dismayed at the pregnancy, not when it made John so happy. What kind of woman isn’t delighted to find out she’s carrying her husband’s child?

John said they could stay on the mainland until she had the baby, but after that it would be time to move. He had already secured a house on Litta and was looking for a job as an accountant in Oban. He intended to work there a few days a week, commuting by ferry when the weather permitted and staying in rented accommodation on the mainland when necessary. He had it all planned out. Aware of her own disloyalty, Katrina secretly hoped he wouldn’t find a job in Oban just yet, and that they would have to wait a while longer. But as John said himself, he was successful in all his ventures—Katrina had almost come to see it as part of his character, like a vein of gold running through rock—and he was taken on by a firm in Oban just a week before Katrina’s due date.

So six weeks after Nicky was born, they moved out to the island, Katrina still lost in a fog of exhaustion and shock.

“Are you sure?” Jill said again on the telephone.

“Of course,” Katrina replied. “It’s what we’ve always planned.”

“It’s very far,” Jill said. “Two and a half hours on the ferry, is that right?”

“Just under,” Katrina said, wondering why she suddenly felt so defensive.

“Well,” Jill said, “good luck to you,” and for the first time in her life Katrina felt as though she disliked her sister.

3

Katrina knew no one on the island, and the isolation of her new setting, the bleakness of its dark hills and the endless expanse of sea, appalled her. She was cold all the time during that first winter. The cottage John had taken was draughty and there was no central heating. There was an old storage heater, but it used so much electricity that they couldn’t afford to put it on very often. Katrina felt the dampness of the salt air even inside the cottage, even inside her clothes, even inside her bones.