He drove south down Shetland mainland towards Lerwick with the radio on. Fran said his concern for the people he met through work was a sort of arrogance. ‘I love the fact you care about them, but you’re not a priest after all. Let people take responsibility for their own pain. Why do you think you can help them when their own friends can’t?’ Now he tried to take her advice, to forget Sandy’s grey, exhausted face and the tension in Evelyn’s back as she bent over the stove. Instead he sang along, very loudly, to the Proclaimers. The mist lifted a little as he approached the town and there were streaks of pale sunlight reflected from the dock as he drove past the ferry terminal.

He decided he would go home for lunch. He felt a need to talk to Fran and Cassie and he couldn’t do that from the office with its noise and interruptions. He lived in a narrow, old house built right on the waterfront, so you could see the high-water mark on its outside wall. By now the mist had cleared sufficiently for the island of Bressay to be visible. It was the warmest day of the spring so far and he opened the living-room window to let in the sound of the gulls and the tide, the salt-laden air.

He was missing Fran more than he thought he would. He hadn’t told her, of course. She would despise it and think it was a sign of his easy emotion. Whenever he phoned she was full of the people she’d met, the shows she’d seen, the galleries she’d visited. Sometimes he worried that she wouldn’t want to come back. It occurred to him now that the Whalsay women he’d met had that in common with Fran. Sandy’s cousin and father were content with life on the islands, but Evelyn and Anna looked at the world outside and wanted more. It seemed to him that in their demands for change they might spoil the place they claimed to love.

He’d bought a second-hand filter-coffee machine at one of last summer’s Sunday teas. He folded the filter paper and spooned in the coffee, waited for the delicious smell as the coffee dripped through. Fran envied his ability to drink strong black coffee all day and still sleep at night. He realized she was in his head whatever else he was doing, a backdrop to all his other thoughts.

He dialled the number of her parents’ house, but there was no answer and he replaced the receiver when the answering service clicked in. He didn’t like the idea of them picking up his message and listening to his stumbled words in an accent that must be all but unintelligible to them.