Effie gave her a pained look. She knew the nurse was referring to the petition. Since signing their names a few weeks earlier, the islanders had lived in a suspended state – the request to evacuate had been formally delivered and the ball set rolling, but the endless debates and arguments preceding it through the harsh winter and dreich spring had now fallen quiet. No one had mentioned the evacuation since the letter had been taken to the Other Side with the trawlermen; it was as if they were scared that to mention it at all would somehow determine the outcome. The will to leave was not unanimous by any means – the elders wanted to stay and so did some of the younger ones, like Effie and Mhairi. In Mhairi’s case, she had too much to lose by leaving; in Effie’s, simply nothing to gain. Most of the time Effie consoled herself that it would never happen. They had been denied everything before; why should they be heard now? But occasionally doubt crept into her mind and she felt a cold clutch around her heart at the prospect of leaving. It was too much to consider and the islanders had collectively resigned themselves to waiting, silently, patiently, for the judgement that would declare their fates.

‘. . . Have you heard back, then?’ She swallowed, feeling a rush of dread.

Lorna had been the architect behind the petition. She had taken it badly when poor Molly Ferguson had died this past winter from an illness that would have been treatable on the mainland. Lorna had declared enough was enough and raised the idea of evacuation. The harvest had failed for another year, they were all exhausted, too few doing the work of too many. She had led the village discussions on the matter, then when the vote was in, written the letter. She had decided on a new life with the same determination and vigour that she’d once applied to this one and it seemed only natural that she would be the one to deliver the verdict.

‘No, not yet.’