Matching rainbow wrist tattoos

We had argued all winter about it. In the end the postmistress settled things by pinning a notice to the shop door that read only, Paint what you like, the wall is dull. Ailsa took the morning boat with brushes in her pocket. I went too, because in thirty-one years I had never let her cross the sound alone, and I did not mean to start on a Tuesday.

We worked in bands, blue first, then indigo and green, letting each colour bleed into the next where the salt damp had lifted the old limewash. Ailsa kept her strokes loose, the way you would for a nursery mural, and I kept telling her the edges should look breathed on. By four o'clock the wall looked less like a flag and more like weather coming in off the water. Mrs Tennant from the chandlery stood in her doorway with her arms folded, then unfolded them and went back inside without a word.

Ailsa painted the last thing herself: a heart at the corner, traced in colour round its outline, the middle left bare so the grey stone showed through. Little Donnie from the shop asked why it was empty. She wiped her fingers on her father's coat and said that was the bit where people could stand. Then she took my hand, and we caught the five o'clock boat home with our wrists touching over the rail.