‘This on you, it’s … lighter somehow. And warm. Like cinnamon, or … God, what was that cake we used to get?’ His voice was faint now, his lips hardly moving. His hand relaxed on to his chest. His chin dropped slightly. The bulb of his nose pressed against my wrist bone. Softly I gave a little push, and watched his head tip back and settle against the pillow.

I left the room, shutting the door as quietly as I could, and crept towards the stairs. My mother would have noticed my absence by now. She would be scrubbing the mixing bowl with her head tipped to one side, as if she were listening to the scones rise in the oven, when really she was listening for me. I would have to wash the perfume off before she smelled it.

On the landing there was a big picture window, and I paused beside it, looking out across the silvery loch. The moon was small and hard and bright. I lifted my wrist to my face.

WITH THEM INTERCEDE FOR US ALL

She was drunk, okay, there’s no arguing with that; but sober enough to take her bracelet off. It was on the floor later. That’s what she can’t forget. The metal bracelet, silver-plated, solid links, a snap she prised open. Fiddly. Then she put it on the bedside table. So it wouldn’t hurt her in her sleep.

*

When she gets off the plane she’s waiting for the hot air to meet her, holiday air, like opening the oven door, but it doesn’t. It’s end of season, and the sky is as grey as the sky she left behind. Down the metal steps on to the airstrip. No tunnel. Everything exposed. She sees men unloading luggage from the belly of the plane – she sees them toss the bags into a plastic skip, thumping and crashing, dead weights, jumbled up. She doesn’t see the yellow lines painted on the ground. Someone has to show her to the door.

For a minute in the arrivals hall she thinks Demetra hasn’t remembered. She stands apart from the crowd, looking. Her breath comes with an audible fight. Not now. Not here. The inhaler’s in her jacket – she fishes it out. Then the crowd splits and Demetra steps forward, smiling, with a red cotton braid in her hair.

‘You stay tonight in Athens,’ Demetra tells her in the car. ‘The boat is very early in the morning or late in the afternoon. I thought you would want to sleep.’

‘I would,’ she says, ‘thank you,’ but she’s wired from the plane.