The men were already gathered on the Street for the daily parliament by the time Effie wandered up, Poppit by her side. From a distance, they all looked the same, wearing brown woollen trousers and waistcoats, their shirt sleeves rolled up and cloth caps on their heads, no shoes. She, wearing the same, minus the cap, loitered on the periphery near to Mad Annie, who was sitting at her spinning wheel by the front door of her cottage. The men were debating between digging in the potato crop, starting the fulmar harvest or planning a trip over to neighbouring Boreray to pluck the sheep. Effie looked out to sea. The water was mirror-calm through the four-mile stretch.

‘We should take the window while we’ve got it,’ Norman Ferguson said decisively. ‘You saw the winds yesterday, there’ll be a few days o’ doldrums now before the next spring storm. If we leave it till after then, the sheep’ll go into moult and—’

‘Aye, but with the winter we’ve just had,’ Donald McKinnon argued. ‘I say we should get the crops in now while the ground’s warm. It’ll buy us some time to lift early if need be—’

‘What about the birds? Stac Lee’s thick w’ them,’ Angus said, wanting to get out on the ropes.

‘We’ve a few more days on that. They were a week late in comin’ this year,’ Norman said dismissively. ‘But if we get over to Boreray and pluck now, the factor can take the wool back and we free up some space in the feather store. It’s always fit to bursting on his return.’

Her father gave a derisive laugh. ‘Get the wool now, aye, but if ye think he’ll credit ye that come September, think again. Half o’ it will be conveniently lost or forgotten.’

A silence greeted his bold words. It was one thing to cheek the factor in his absence, quite another to risk it while he was in residence. Heads turned to check they’d not been overheard, the factor a silent shadow at their backs.

‘Then he can write it down and we can show proof he took it,’ Norman said in a quieter voice.

‘Because we read and write so well?’

Norman’s cheeks coloured. ‘Lorna MacDonald can do it then.’

Uncle Hamish cleared his throat. As one of the older men but still active in the island duties, he often moved as an unelected leader. ‘We’ll have a show of hands. Those for the tatties.’

Two hands went up – Donald McKinnon and old Finlay Ferguson. Old Fin was in his eighties, but digging lazybeds was one of the few chores he could still partake in.

‘Sheep plucking.’

Twelve hands went up, including Effie’s.

‘Boreray it is then.’ Uncle Hamish looked across at her. ‘Effie, you know full well you’ll not be coming.’

‘But—’

‘No buts.’