Donald was never told what conversation had occurred between them in the weeks that followed, but somehow, miraculously after his behaviour outside the house, Malcolm was allowed to carry on visiting. Donald would drive him down to make sure he got there, red-eyed and mostly silent, twice or three times a year, watch him sitting douce on his knees on the carpet as she unwrapped his present on Boxing Day, not making eye contact with Eileen or Alec propped stiffly on the sofa with their sherries. He would always buy her musical presents – books of sheet music, a chanter, a tin whistle; on her ninth birthday a tiny fiddle he’d had made for her – but the gifts existed in isolation. He’d never ask how she was getting on with them, never contact Eileen about the girl’s music, never offer to pay for the lessons she’d need. And Cliodhna would take the instruments and smile, and set them gently aside.

In the van, driving back and forth from the seaside, they would sing, favourite tunes from their own youth and Burns, always Burns. Malcolm created simple harmonies for Cliodhna’s sweet soprano to pull against the more prosaic of Rabbie’s songs she’d learned by rote at school. They taught her Gaelic lullabies, reminded her of the songs they’d sung when she was a baby. It was important work, Donald felt; it was keeping the island part of her alive.

On their last trip, she was only mouthing the words, her voice barely catching the notes. ‘You need to sing up, Cliodhna,’ Donald said, giving Malcolm a look over her head. Her father picked up on it.

‘I want to hear you sing, m’eun bhig, my little bird. I miss your lovely voice when I’m not with you.’

‘Nobody else wants to hear it, though,’ the girl muttered, turning herself away to face out the window.

‘Who would not want to hear you? Everybody wants to listen to you.’

‘Mrs McGrouther said I was singing too loudly and putting the other children off. And Mum told me to stop. She said I was giving her a headache.’

Three years earlier, this would have driven Malcolm into a frenzy. Now he just sagged, went silent. Donald pulled the van to a stop at the side of the road.

‘Hey now. Cliodhna. Look at me.’

She turned around, sulking. Between them her father stared straight ahead, blank.

‘You have got the most beautiful voice, and you must never stop singing, no matter what people say. Do you remember when you lived with your daddy and me, and we were in a band? Do you remember the island we lived on, Skye?’

She made a half-committal face. Perhaps she didn’t, he thought. Could kids forget their lives of five years earlier?