He glanced at her, a sharp look that was almost a wince, and Anna felt her stomach plummet with the absolute certainty that she had said something terrible. A sudden, brief silence suffocated the buoyant atmosphere in the room.

‘Actually, Robbie’s mum died a few years ago,’ he said, his voice even but quiet. ‘Barbara is his grandma. She helps out a lot. She’s an exceptional sea-woman herself. She was with us on the lifeboat until a few years ago.’

‘I – I’m sorry,’ Anna stammered. ‘I didn’t—’

Old Robbie smiled and shook his head slightly. ‘There’s no need to apologize. Anyway, you’re right – Cassie was a sailor – she was so much a part of the sea that I used to joke she must really be a selkie.’

Eight

The next day, Sunday, Anna joined David and Glynn as they walked their Irish setter, a great soppy beast with shaggy red fur. The windswept trio had knocked on her door as they passed and asked her to join them. Anna had accepted, touched by the ready offer of friendship and remembering her vow: Say yes to as many things as you can while you’re here.

‘Don’t ask,’ David said, as Anna was officially introduced to their hound, which claimed the incongruous name of Bill. ‘It’s all Glynn’s fault. The agreement was that I got to choose the breed and he got to choose the name and I should have known that if a deal sounds too sweet, it probably is.’

‘I think it’s a fine name,’ Anna said, as she and the effervescent Bill got to know each other, and then laughed as Glynn beamed at David in triumph.

They set off up the main – the only – track out of the village and then turned off at the car park, striking out over a stile into the fields that topped the cliff above Crovie to the east. The path wound steadily higher and steeper as the cliffs rose towards the sky. At times it came perilously close to the edge – so close, in fact, that below she could see not just the Fishergirl’s Luck, but also the roofs of the houses.

Anna watched Bill charge ahead of them, his great paws galumphing along the track before he doubled back to check they were still following his lead. The wind was up this morning, tearing at hair and breath. In rain or in winter walking up here would be an even more difficult proposition. In the more precipitous parts of the track there was evidence of slippage, too – scrapes in the slopes where the grass had separated from the earth to reveal the reddish soil beneath. It reminded her of the damaged houses she’d spotted on her first perambulation of the village.