‘My goodness!’ Pat said, as Anna waved her visiting neighbour into the Fishergirl’s Luck. ‘You have been busy. It spruces up nicely, doesn’t it, this little place?’

‘Yes,’ Anna admitted, looking around the room, into which was shining a cheerful amount of sunlight. ‘It does, actually.’

‘Well, I don’t want to hold you up,’ Pat said. ‘It’s only that Frank and I were thinking we might have a few friends over on Saturday night. It’d be the usual suspects from Crovie and Gardenstown and the like. You should come, it’ll give you a chance to meet some new faces. They’re all good people, our friends.’

‘Oh,’ Anna said. ‘Well – that’s really kind of you, but…’

‘It wouldn’t be anything grand,’ her neighbour added. ‘There’s usually something going on at one or other of our houses on a weekend. It might help you to feel less like a visitor passing through if you knew more people, that’s all. It can’t hurt, can it? Even if you really do decide you don’t want to stay.’

‘The thing is,’ Anna told her, ‘once I’ve got this place straightened up and taken some photographs, I think I’ll try putting it on Airbnb until I can work out what to do with it more permanently. I’m not sure I’ll still be here at the weekend.’

Pat smiled, though a little sadly. ‘I see. Ah, well, that’s a pity.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said, feeling inexplicably guilty.

‘Don’t be, love,’ Pat told her. ‘You have to do what’s right for you. But look – if you change your mind in the next couple of days, you’ll still be welcome to join us. Any time after seven. Just knock and come in.’

Hey selkie lass,

Dolphins are the latest thing, have you noticed? He’s drawn them all over his schoolbooks, in the margins, on the covers, everywhere. Should we worry about how obsessive he gets? Does it mean something? Is it normal? Is encouraging him a good idea, or not? Last week it was geology, wasn’t it? The bathroom is still full of rocks. Maybe I should give Miss Carmichael a call. Why don’t kids come with manuals? Everything else does and nothing else is nearly as complicated. Or expensive.

They’re too easy to get wrong.

Love you.

PS: Yes, there is more beetroot. Just don’t ask me to open the jar. Love will carry you so far and then it’ll smother you in the fumes of a pickled beetroot. I’m not falling for that one.

PPS: I can’t call Miss Carmichael. I think she fancies me. Can you do it?

Six