I look at myself looking back at me. She’s right: it does make a difference, turning a perfectly nice outfit into something much more stylish and considered. Carrie’s tall figure is beside me in the frame, now clad in tight black jeans tucked into spike-heeled boots, with a sloppy maroon wide-necked cashmere sweater over the top. Her makeup is artfully edgy without being overblown. There’s no question in which direction the eye is drawn.

Suddenly she throws an arm around my shoulders, easy to do from her height, and pulls me against her side. “Look at us,” she says smiling. “The Innes girls, together again.”

I can’t spoil the moment. I let her infectious mood pull an answering smile from me, and I know better than to say, I’m a Calder.

My father is living in the Lake District. He is in a civil partnership with a man named Colin, and they run an organic cheese-making farm together. Sometimes he wonders what his life was like before whatever the accident was that robbed him of his memories, but he would never risk upsetting Colin by investigating. Colin says they ought to be grateful for their happiness, and he is, although he hopes it’s not at the expense of anybody else’s. The cheese-making is a little dull, truth be told, but it’s lucrative, and they go on long holidays to the Bahamas. He feels grateful for what they have and doesn’t often wonder if there’s anything more.

SEVEN

If I’m harboring any stereotypical qualms about the Quaich being some kind of parochial tavern where the locals stop talking and stare when strangers walk through the door, those are dispelled the minute we enter. The room feels like an airy barn, with high timber beams spanning the broad space. On one side, there are square wooden tables and chairs laid out for dinner, with sparklingly clean glassware, and the other is obviously meant more as a drinking space, with large leather sofas in dark greens and browns flanking low wooden tables. A long bar runs along the entire back wall. Even for a Friday night, it strikes me as busy: all of the dining tables look to be occupied, and there are clusters of people on the sofas and at the bar. Not a single person looks round at us.

“God, I hope we can get a table. I didn’t think to call and reserve one.”

“Well, we can always have a drink at the bar if there isn’t one immediately.” Now that Carrie is over her earlier hump, she seems determined not to let anything ruin the evening. “What is a quaich anyway?”