“Of course,” Kathy said, and Malcolm was grateful again for her cheerfulness, how much more natural she made things feel. “We do make some effort to move with the times here.”

Tommy nodded, and wandered over to the cheese fridge to inspect its contents.

Malcolm completed his shopping as quickly as possible, feeling absurdly self-conscious. “Is there anything you want, Tommy?” he called, but received a shake of the head in reply.

“Well, it’s lovely to see you, Tommy,” Kathy said, once Malcolm had paid and packed the shopping away in his rucksack. “Welcome home.”

Tommy, already heading for the door, paused at this, and Malcolm saw, or thought he saw, his shoulders tense. But all Tommy said when he turned back to Kathy was, “Thanks.”

Outside, he offered to take the rucksack from Malcolm, but Malcolm said, “I’m not infirm yet, lad.”

As they began the walk back, Malcolm glanced towards the coast. “You know, a seal colony’s moved in on the rocks further south. Never seen them in that area before. If you fancy a walk another time, we might go and see if we can spot them. You used to have to go all the way down to the southern tip, didn’t you?”

“Or north,” Tommy said. “Nicky and I used to go north.”

“Did you now? All the way up to Craigmore?” The northern reaches of the island were uninhabited.

“Yeah. The rocks were the best for climbing there.”

This was the most he’d volunteered in a while, and Malcolm waited to see if he’d say more. But Tommy was silent again, staring out to sea.

As they were about to follow the bend of the road out of sight, Malcolm spotted Fiona McKenzie driving the shop’s van down the northern stretch of the road, having finished the day’s deliveries. He was grateful, at least, that they’d left without encountering her, although he knew Kathy would be sharing the news of Tommy as soon as Fiona entered the shop, both of them agog. Better, though, to put off any further meetings for now. Fiona didn’t have Kathy’s ease of manner, and Malcolm hadn’t worked out how to account for Tommy’s presence yet, even to himself.

And he looked so much like his father.

Sometimes at night Malcolm still dreamed of John, and the worst part of these nightmares was that they weren’t nightmares at all. It would be an ordinary day, he and John as boys, kicking a football around or running along the beach; but Malcolm would wake in a cold sweat from these calm, pleasant scenarios, shaken by the knowledge that something terrible was going to happen, and even now he couldn’t see it coming, not in the right way, not in a way that would help, even when it had already happened.

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