‘Why has my father changed his mind about selling Setter?’

‘He realized it made sense. What would he want with an old house?’ Sandy recognized the tone. She was all bluster and bravado, like some teenage lad who’d stolen a car and driven it into a ditch.

Sandy shook his head. ‘He loves the place. He grew up there. He doesn’t want it full of strangers.’

‘That’s sentiment,’ Evelyn said. ‘You can’t eat sentiment.’

‘He said you’d tell me what this was all about.’

She paused for a beat, stared at him sadly for a moment. ‘Oh Sandy, you’re the last person I could tell.’

It was as if she’d slapped him in the face.

The phone rang then and his mother went to answer it. She came back frowning. ‘That was your Auntie Jackie. She wants to know if you could go up to the big house. Andrew’s fidgeting to talk to you, she says.’

‘Aye. Why not? I’ll walk over.’ He knew he was a coward but he couldn’t wait to get out of the house.

Walking up the track to the Clouston place, he did feel better. There was a wheatear bouncing along the stone wall and skylarks singing in the field beyond. He found Jackie in the kitchen. The table was full of clutter – bags of flour, sugar and oats, tins of syrup and treacle. ‘You look busy. Is this for something special?’

‘Evelyn’s asked me to do some baking for her grand do in the hall,’ Jackie said. ‘I thought I’d make a start today. Anna’s helping me out.’ Then Sandy saw that Anna Clouston was there too, sitting in the corner. She was breastfeeding the baby. You couldn’t see exactly what was going on because she was wearing a loose jumper, but he felt embarrassed just the same, felt his face colour. He turned away.

‘As you see,’ Anna said, ‘I’m not helping very much at the moment.’

‘I’ve told her she should give the bairn a bottle.’ Jackie began to beat together a lump of butter and some sugar. ‘He might start to sleep at night. He’s probably starving.’

‘He’s fine,’ Anna said. ‘He won’t be a baby for long. I don’t mind a bit of disturbance for a while. I don’t mind putting myself out for my child.’ The implication was clear: she thought Jackie was selfish.

Sandy thought this was how women fought. With civilized words carrying poison.

‘Where’s Andrew?’ Because it had come to him that the room seemed quite different and that was because of his uncle’s absence. Andrew usually sat in his chair by the stove, a permanent fixture, like the shiny American fridge and the china dog on the dresser. Huge and imposing, he seldom spoke but somehow made his presence felt.