She worried about Nicky being cold, and kept him wrapped in so many layers he sometimes looked almost spherical. There was a fireplace in the living room, and Katrina grew proficient at building a fire and keeping it going all day, remaining huddled in front of it with Nicky for hours at a time when the weather was particularly cold and wet.

On better days, she would put Nicky in his sling and go out exploring her new home, tramping across the moorland and through the hills along the island’s single road. It brought her little pleasure. Everything was a variation of grey, even the sheep who watched her balefully as she passed them.

Katrina had thought of herself as fairly self-reliant before coming to the island but in those first few months she was desperately lonely, especially as John often stayed overnight on the mainland and left her on her own. When he was home, he was preoccupied, different to the man she remembered, but in no clear way she could put her finger on. Nicky didn’t seem to sleep much and Katrina found herself unable to keep up with the shopping and cooking and laundry. John was mostly patient, but she knew he minded if he came home to find the house a mess and no meal prepared. And these were all basic tasks, she knew. The baby, too, made her angry with his constant crying and she felt guilty for how much she resented him. It had never occurred to her that she would be a failure as a mother, but she began to see how it had always been impossible that she would be anything else. She remembered Jill saying that their own mother had no feelings for other people, and Katrina could see that she herself had never stood a chance at something she had never been shown how to do. She began to wish she had never met John. It wasn’t fair on either of them. She began to wish she had never been born.

With such a small population, she couldn’t have kept to herself for long, even if she’d wanted to. Malcolm and Heather lived a twenty-minute drive away on the other side of the island, and Heather would drop round from time to time to see Katrina. She seemed surprised at how often John was absent, and Katrina found she resented Heather’s surprise, wishing she would keep away. It made her angry to be caught out like this, with the house a state and Katrina herself a state too, her hair not washed for days, her face haggard with exhaustion, the baby crying as always and refusing to be comforted. She imagined what Heather might be saying afterwards to Malcolm, who would probably pass it on to John: “Of course, she’s trying her best, the poor lass, but anyone can see she’s not really cut out for it.”