“Ah, but havenae you been listening? I can never be the gospel. I’m unreliable, I cannae date memories, my recall is questionable.” She sees that I don’t know what to say, and relents. “I only remember the arrival of one babe, so it would have to have been Callum. And I remember it being here.” She shrugs. And then Carrie is back, and in an instant the room is louder and more bustling. She puts the radio on, she co-opts Fiona as a sous-chef and in short order I’m ushered out of the kitchen with orders to go relax in the bath or something.

For a moment, I stand outside the kitchen, wineglass in one hand, temporarily at a loss. Then I climb the stairs, but I don’t stop on the second floor; I go all the way up to the attic. To the albums, which I flick through quickly, looking for any photos taken in the kitchen. There are plenty in the garden, in the dining room or on various Scottish beaches, but none in the kitchen as far as I can see. If my purple wall idea is less divine inspiration and more the echo of a memory, I can’t prove it either way.

For want of anything better to do, I go and run a bath.

•   •   •

Dinner is . . . nice. Truly, it is. Carrie’s food is delicious, as always, and she has a spring in her step that’s infectious. Fiona has a glass of wine in front of her when I come down from my bath, and I try not to think about whether she should do that along with whatever medication she’s on. It’s brought a flush to her cheeks and softened the sharpness of her eyes. She’s talking about Callum when I enter, and that softens her, too.

“The private school, Gordon’s—the one at the top of the hill, you ken? It has a great setup for coping with dyslexic kids,” she’s saying. “But the fees at that place are . . .” She trails off and shakes her head. She lifts the bottle of wine questioningly as I join her at the table, but I shake my head.

“Can your dad help out on that?” Carrie asks from across the kitchen, then adds, “Perfect timing, Ailsa, dinner’ll be ready in a couple of minutes.”

Fiona is shaking her head. “A police pension doesnae quite run to putting a kid through private school.” She pronounced it po-lis. I haven’t heard that for years. “All he wants to do is work with animals, but without some kind of decent education, he’ll end up mucking out horse shite forever.” She takes another sip of wine. “Like me.”

“You love where you work,” protests Carrie.

“Aye. Kind of,” sighs Fiona. “But I’d love it more if it, you know, paid me a fuck load of money.”