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eyes filled with the fire of ice. ‘What’s so funny?’
    ‘You.’
    ‘Thank you.’ She gave him an ironic little smile without humour and returned to a worktop where she was in the process of preparing sandwiches for the ferry trip. ‘So how does it feel to have a real job again?’
    Fin leaned against the fridge. ‘Doesn’t feel like a real job. No office, no telephones, no one counting my hours.’
    ‘When they’re not counting them it usually means you’re working far more than you should.’
    Fin smiled and nodded. ‘I probably will be.’ Then he said, ‘I met an old schoolfriend today.’
    ‘Yes?’ Marsaili was still focused on her sandwiches, and he sensed that she wasn’t really interested.
    ‘John Angus Macaskill. Everyone knew him as Whistler.’
    ‘Oh, yes. Played the flute with – what were they called then – Sòlas?’
    ‘That’s him.’
    ‘Good-looking big lad. But not right in the head, I think.’
    Fin grinned at her description of him. ‘Too clever for his own good, he was. Still is.’
    ‘I never really knew him. We didn’t mix in the same circles at school.’ She began wrapping the sandwiches in tinfoil.
    ‘No, you were too busy with Artair in those days.’
    There was an almost imperceptible pause in the wrapping of the sandwiches, but she didn’t turn. ‘What’s he doing now?’
    ‘Living like a tramp in a tip of a croft down in Uig.’
    She turned, holding the wrapped sandwiches in her hands, a glint of curiosity in her eyes. ‘Like a tramp?’
    Fionnlagh dragged an enormous brown suitcase into the kitchen. He was as tall as Fin. Perhaps taller. With his tight blonde curls gelled into points, and his mother’s blue eyes. He nodded acknowledgement to his father as Fin expanded on his description of Whistler for Marsaili. ‘He’s sort of dropped out. Self-sufficient. Poaching, of course. And locked in some kind of custody battle for his daughter.’
    ‘With his wife?’
    ‘No, she’s dead. Kenny John Maclean’s her legal guardian.’
    Fionnlagh broke in. ‘Are we talking about Anna Bheag?’
    Fin looked at him, surprised. ‘You know her?’
    ‘Anna Macaskill, from Uig?’
    ‘That would be her.’
    Fionnlagh nodded. ‘She’s trouble that one. In third year at the Nicolson. Never seen so many tattoos to the square inch on a lassie in my life. A good-looking girl, too, but wears her hair cropped, like a boy’s, and got a face-full of metal.’
    Fin was taken aback. It wasn’t the image conjured up by Whistler’s ‘wee Anna’. ‘What age is she?’
    Fionnlagh shrugged. ‘About fifteen, maybe. But no virgin, that’s for sure. Hangs about with a druggie crowd. So God knows what she’s on. Shame. Smart kid. But brains are wasted on her.’ He glanced at his mother. ‘Will I just take this out to the car?’
    ‘On you go,’ Marsaili said. ‘I’ll put the sandwiches in your rucksack.’
    Fionnlagh started heaving his case out of the door. ‘I don’t need sandwiches. I can buy something on the boat.’
    Marsaili headed for the living room and threw her riposte over her shoulder. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees, Fionnlagh. You’ll find that out soon enough when you’re trying to live on a budget down in Glasgow.’
    Fifteen minutes later they all walked up to the road with the last of Fionnlagh’s stuff as Donald’s car pulled in ahead of them and he helped Donna out with her case. Every time Fin saw Donald these days it appeared he had lost more weight. Gone were his boyish good looks, and more of his fine sandy hair. And Fin was struck, as he always was, by how young Donna looked. Hardly old enough to be themother of Fin’s granddaughter. Seventeen going on twelve. In spite of the long, hot summer, she had a winter pallor about her, as if she had never been over the door. And he wondered how much of himself there was in Fionnlagh, and whether his relationship with Donna would survive the years at university. At least, he thought, they had the glue