Dad put a couple of glasses of juice on the table and said, “Listen, we thought we’d skip work today, as you’ve only just arrived. There isn’t all that much to do here, but perhaps we could go out for a picnic lunch? Find a nice spot along the cliffs?” 103

I knew Dad was trying to make it nice, but I wished he didn’t bother. It would have been easier if it had just been the three of us. With Kate and Charlie, it was bound to feel awkward, but I could see that Rosie was pleased that Dad wanted to spend time with us.

“Sounds good,” I forced myself to say.

At that moment, there was a creak in the doorway, and Charlie appeared, still wearing his pyjamas.

“Morning, darling,” Kate said. “Are you going to have some breakfast?”

But Charlie was already backing away from the door.

“I ate something earlier,” he said, before disappearing back up the stairs.

“Perhaps you girls might like to help me organize the food for our picnic?” Dad asked, looking hopeful.

It was obvious that we didn’t have a choice, that he wanted this to be bonding time. Rosie looked delighted too, so I knew I had to go along with it. It was going to be a very boring morning – I almost wished that the lighthouse really was cursed.

104At lunchtime, we took the picnic and wandered along the cliff path in the opposite direction to the one we’d explored yesterday. It was all just more of the same: sea and scrub, thousands of shrieking birds, tall cairns and endless bloody flies. I could see straight away that having a picnic on Bird Rock wasn’t going to work. Perhaps Dad could too now that we were out here, but he didn’t want to say so – we’d just have to make the best of it.

We found a little clearing just off the cliff path that Dad said would be the perfect spot, so we spread out the blanket he’d brought and emptied the basket. It was impossible, though. The flies swarmed around us immediately, crawling all over the sandwiches, landing on our bare skin, refusing to be shooed away.

“This is horrible,” I said.

“It’s not that bad,” Dad replied, batting at a fly for the millionth time.

“I like it!” Charlie insisted.

He certainly seemed to have rediscovered his appetite. He fell on the food like a starved wolf cub. The rest of us were struggling to eat at all with the flies buzzing around. Then the feathers came – dozens and dozens of them, swirling in the air. I couldn’t 105work out where they were coming from at first, but we noticed that a few of the guga hunters had set up a work area on the hill sloping above us.