Ingeborg has both of Karen’s hands in a firm grip and is studying her with concern in her eyes. Karen anxiously wonders what she sees. Ingeborg isn’t one to pull her punches. But instead of pronouncements and questions, a quick series of commands follows.

‘Lars, go down to the basement and fetch some hoggva from the freezer and call the boys and tell them to come over. Karen, you take off your coat and have a seat at the table and I’ll get you something to drink.’

Lars obediently shuffles off and Karen has to press her lips together to hide a smile when she sees the light from the basement stairs like an ellipsis between her uncle’s bowed legs before he disappears in the direction of the chest freezer.

No point resisting, she thinks to herself, sneaking furtive glances around the kitchen while pulling off her coat and handing it to her waiting aunt. To her relief, she finds what she’s looking for. Not proof time has stood still in the large kitchen, not sentimental reminders of baking or cooking on the old Aga stove. What she was hoping to spot was a means of getting out of here before too long. A microwave.

Defrosting hoggva without a microwave would take forever and Ingeborg would flatly refuse being denied the opportunity to feed her niece a proper meal.

Karen gratefully accepts the glass of blackcurrant cordial and leans back. The first sip whisks her back to her childhood as Ingeborg pulls out a chair and sits down across from her.

‘Now, then, lambkins, tell me. How are you doing? I don’t think we’ve seen you since . . . well, sweet Jesus, how long has it been?’

*

Karen doesn’t need to search her memory. She knows exactly when she was last here. On 16 June, eleven and a half years ago. She knows it was a Thursday. It had been almost noon when she and John and Mathis had arrived in Ravenby on the Harwich ferry and decided to swing by Noorö instead of driving straight to her mother’s house in Langevik.

It had been a spontaneous decision. Karen had wanted to share at least a small part of what her own summers had been like with Mathis, if only for a day. The last time they’d visited, he’d been two years old and too little to remember any of it. Now, having turned eight, the memories would stay with him. She wanted to carve out a space for her own childhood in her son’s memory bank, a small counterweight to all the summers spent in Surrey with John’s parents and their trips to Italy, Spain and France.