I sat and listened to the lawyer and in short order wondered (a) why Grandma Margot had chosen a lawyer to make the address, (b) whether he'd be charging us for his time, and (c) how many others of my family were wondering the same things.

"… long history of the McHoan family in the town of Gallanach, of which she was so proud, and to which she so… usefully and, and industriously contributed throughout her long life. It was my privilege to know and serve both Margot and her late husband Matthew well, in Matthew's case first as a school friend, back in the twenties. I well remember…»

"Grandma, I mean; good grief."

"What?"

My grandmother drew deeply on the Dunhill, flicked her wrist to close the brass Zippo, then put the lighter back in her cardigan.

"Grandma, you're smoking."

Margot coughed a little and blew the smoke towards me, a grey screen for those ash-coloured eyes. "Well, so I am." She inspected the cigarette closely, then took another drag. "I always wanted to, you know," she told me, and looked away, over the loch towards the hills and trees on the far side. I'd wheeled her down to the shore path at Pointhouse near the old cairns. I sat on the grass. A soft breeze disturbed the water; seagulls flew stiff-winged, and in the distance the occasional car or truck disturbed the air, making a lazy throat-clearing noise as they emerged from or disappeared into the channel the main road drove between the trees. "Hilda used to smoke," she said quietly, not looking at me. "My elder sister; she used to smoke. And I always wanted to." I picked up a handful of pebbles from the path-side and started throwing them at the waves, lapping against the rocks a metre below us, almost at high tide. "But your grandfather wouldn't let me." My grandmother sighed.