And Holly had shouted, and they both had shouted, and they hadn’t seen each other afterwards until everything was changed and he was lying in a hospital bed, and she was filled with thoughts of how she could have done things better. But now what Holly could remember most clearly were the words that her mother had spoken. Actually, I rather loved giving birth to my children, she had said. And although her mum had been dead for many years and she’d never asked her about it while she was alive, Holly wondered if when her mum spoke those words she was telling the truth, her own truth, and no one was listening.

Now this, thought Piotr, was a train. There were no tables on the Far North Line so Holly had commandeered a double seat for herself while Eva and Piotr sat behind, to give her some peace and quiet. The dark had fallen fast and deep, and to Piotr there was nothing but their own reflections visible in the windows. Inside it was all threadbare carpet and old-fashioned armrests on the seats, the kind that you had to press a little button on to make then move up and down.

‘It’s incredible,’ Eva whispered, nudging him in the ribs.

‘What?’ he whispered back. ‘The dirt on the windows?’

‘No, you arse,’ she said. ‘The moonlight on the water.’

‘There’s water?’

He’d had no idea.

‘Take the seat behind. Block out the lights, and shut up. And look.’

Piotr did exactly as he was told.

She was right. She was so very, very right. The water spread out into a shimmering expanse of black, and in the distance there was a bridge, lit, low, curving its way over the water. He looked up, and the stars began to appear between the clouds. The wind was strong, the sky changing rapidly, and he could hear the gusts howling against the windows of the carriage.

‘Sounds a bit wild out there,’ he whispered, and though she didn’t turn round he was fairly sure that she was smiling. That she understood.

Locals got on and off as the train wound its way through the windswept villages on the Cromarty Firth, getting emptier the further they got from Inverness. Filling with the hushed quiet of a library. Soon the only people in their carriage were the three of them – the passengers from London. They’d bought some sandwiches for dinner at the station, and they ate them in silence. Outside there were no more homes to see, no more bridges or harbour lights, only the darkness of woodland and winter fields. Piotr pulled out his ticket and checked the name of their destination. The journey was almost over, at least the easy part of it. He put on his jacket and joined Eva by the doors. They were pulling in.