She called out something she didn’t understand herself, went down and out again and put the boat away, carried the box of provisions back up and in the kitchen frenetically began to make a length of netting, which she suspended from the edge of the vent in the ceiling. The kitten climbed up a few feet and hung by one claw, let itself down again and sat meowing and striking out with both paws while Alexander smiled quizzically, at her – was his name Alexander?

She went upstairs and lowered the yarn netting, the cat sank its claws in it, she lifted it all the way up, it looked around the North Chamber, she carried it down into the kitchen again, went back up, repeated the process and Alexander clapped in silent acknowledgement as the cat at last realised it had been given a ladder.

Ingrid said she was going to call it “Koshka”.

He corrected her, pronounced the word twice and said ja, ja, when she got it right.

But she didn’t smile.

She asked him whether he was German or Russian.

He wrapped his arms around her, again she saw the far too small egg and the large spoon and began to scream and pummel him with her fists. He managed to push her down onto the bench and sat on her, speaking a language that still didn’t sound like German. Then he began to sing, a children’s song, which didn’t sound German either, lay down beside her and breathed in her ear until their breathing harmonised and neither of them spoke.

Ingrid buried her fingers into his short, black hair, sniffed and smelled only soap, kissed him and said he had to fetch some wood, she didn’t have the energy, she was dead, did he understand what that meant – dead?

He smiled and pulled on a jumper, went out and came in with wood and peat as if he lived there and stoked the fire as if he lived there, whoever he was, and he stood looking at her, he was such a shiningly beautiful monument of a young man that she had to look away.

Then he said something she interpreted as a question, and she nodded.

He began to cook some food, humming the same children’s song while mixing dough and rolling it into plate-sized round shapes and adding bits of cold, boiled fish and butter, folded them over like fat pancakes on a tray and put them in the oven.

He lay down beside her and let her do what she wanted with him as an unfamiliar smell spread through the room. They ate in silence, went to the loft and lay there together until the first storm hit the southern wall.

Ingrid said through her tears that now they didn’t need to get up. No-one would be coming to the island.