‘You’re no lady, Cliodhna Jean Campbell,’ Eileen would say, pulling her off by the scruff of her jumper, a snarling kitten overexcited by rough play. ‘You apologize to Uncle Donald, and then you sit in there until you’ve simmered down.’ Cliodhna, still carried by the force of herself, would fret and push something, break a cup or kick a chair, and Eileen would calmly slap her on each calf, two loud and terrible cracks resounding through the room.

‘Don’t you hit the lass,’ Malcolm would mutter, sunk in a corner.

‘Don’t you tell me how to raise my daughter, Malcolm Campbell. Unless you’re interested in contributing.’ Just a girl, Donald thought to himself now. Nothing but a girl really, Eileen was. Twenty-three? Eileen had never seemed young, though. She was one of those who’d never got to have a youth.

Cliodhna would be locked in the cupboard, the broom looped through the handles, bangs and scuffs as she threw things eventually dying down. After an hour, she’d be retrieved, asleep, dried tear-stains on her cheeks.

‘Aye, it’s Eileen knows how to handle her really,’ Malcolm would say, as someone else put his daughter to bed.

Eileen’s anger was cold and brisk and always there. She hated, but she hated with logic and organization. Donald couldn’t remember seeing her eat, those last two years; watched her changing shape again as she sloughed off the body her daughter had grown on her, painted her nails red to hide the yellowed tobacco stains on her skinny, pointed fingers. In Inverness, in the winter, Eileen subsisted entirely on tea, cigarettes and disdain. On Skye she was less sharp, her fingers didn’t flutter as much, but her sighs would rip round the cottage when she came in from work to see the mess they’d left. On more than one occasion, Donald had caught her staring at Malcolm’s back, hands clenched and eyes shooting poison.