“Great, we can go straight there and have a drink beforehand if you’re not hungry yet.” He pauses. “You stuck to the roads, right? Good. The path by the river is really slippy at this time of year. Normally you can walk up as far as the waterfalls—not beyond; there were landslips there years ago, so it’s not passable—but right now you can’t even get to the falls.” He’s moving down the aisle toward the cashier, who, from her evident interest, has been listening to our entire conversation. I’m fairly certain she’s the woman Carrie so charmingly described. “So do you need anything from home?” I shake my head. “Okay, great, we’ll go straight there.”

“Just the milk, Ben?” asks the cashier.

“Aye, just the milk, Jean,” he says pleasantly. “Oh, have you met Ailsa? She’s staying up at the Manse with her sister.”

“Nice to meet you, Jean.”

“Nice to meet you, hen.” She has exactly as strong a handshake as her biceps suggest. “You just missed Carrie.”

“Oh, did I?” I attempt to sound vague.

“How are you both settling in at the Manse? Must be a big change from your city lifestyle.” There’s no sour note in the way she says city lifestyle, but somehow I can hear it all the same.

“We’re fine. It’s so beautiful up here.”

“Aye, you wait till you’ve lived through a winter and then see how you feel.” She pauses. “Sorry to hear about your mother. I knew both your parents, you ken. Your mother, she was life and soul of the party.” She shakes her head. It’s not clear whether she approved of Karen’s party animal tendencies. “Aye, life and soul.”

Ben glances at me then rushes in. “Aye, well, you have a good night now, Jean.” He starts to usher me out.

“You too,” calls Jean from behind me. “Enjoy your dinner.”

He herds me toward his car, a very smart BMW convertible. I wonder how many times he gets to put the top down living here. “Is it going to be all over the village by tomorrow that we’re having dinner together?” Not that I care, really. There’s no point in caring, especially when I’m being talked about anyway, it seems.

“Of course not.” He unlocks the car and opens the passenger door for me. It’s an oddly old-fashioned gesture. I wonder if they teach the staff to do that at the hotel. “It’ll be all round the village by midnight latest. By tomorrow the story will have expanded; we’ll have been having rampant sex in the kiddie playground. Probably on the seesaw. Or maybe the slide.”

“Not the swings?”

“Too conventional. We like our gossip a little more avant-garde here.”