Effie peered her head in to the cottage. Mary McKinnon was standing in the bedroom. She had her back turned and was holding onto the wall. ‘Mary,’ she gasped, running forward. ‘Are you—?’

‘Get back!’ Mary cried, alarm in her voice.

Effie stopped dead in her tracks.

‘Please . . . don’t touch me.’ The woman was holding herself awkwardly, pressing her hands to the walls as though holding them up. Effie could see from the rumpled bed that she’d just been lying in it.

‘Are you in pain?’ Effie whispered. ‘Shall I get Lorna back?’ But of course, the nurse was already on the beach, awaiting Mary’s injured husband . . .

Mary shook her head, letting it hang down as she took several slow, laboured breaths. The baby wasn’t due for several more months, Effie knew that much. ‘I’ll be fine. I just need a minute . . . I heard a commotion.’ She turned her head slightly, in question.

‘Oh. Aye.’ Effie felt troubled to be bringing bad news when the poor woman was already suffering. ‘. . . I’m afraid it’s Donald, he’s been injured. Head wound.’

She saw Mary’s fingertips press into the walls, blanching the skin. It didn’t need to be said how hard life would be for the woman if her husband died or was even incapacitated and she was left with a new baby. The neighbours would rally, they always did, but . . .

‘Lorna thinks you should come to the beach. In case . . .’ She didn’t spell it out. She didn’t need to.

Mary simply nodded. ‘You go. I’ll be right down.’

‘Do you want me to help you walk?’ Effie offered.

‘No. I’ll be fine. It was just the sudden movement that got me . . . Go.’

Effie waited another moment more, still not sure she should leave her, but Mary was a firm character. They’d all heard her husband catching a supper off her on many nights over the years. If she said no, no was what she meant.

‘Just call if you need me, then,’ Effie said quietly, retreating from the room.

She walked back out into the Street. The rowing boat was almost at the shore now and all the women were gathered, ready to nurse, feed, wail, greet. The minister was pacing along the water’s edge, the Bible in his hand. Effie’s gaze fell again to the magnificent yacht that had started to become a familiar part of the landscape over the past few days, the emblem of an alien world beginning to settle into theirs. She had been staring at it the whole time she and the women had been waiting for the dinghy to return. If Donald’s injury was bad enough that he needed a hospital doctor, it would be the yacht that would get him there . . . In a matter of minutes after their return, Sholto and his father might be gone from here and she knew they wouldn’t be coming back.