"Italy was a year before I got here," Effy said, trying to get the words out of her lips as quickly as possible, for the thought wasn't one that she wanted to allow to linger and fester, all ill will or hurt towards her mother having been shoved into the background after she'd tried to kill herself, bleeding dry onto yellowed tile. "Talking was..."

She paused, tilting her head in thought, running through the years as though flipping through pages in a photo album without truly focusing on the faces, faces that had begun to fade around the edges ever since she'd landed on the island. Some, even prior.

"Tony was the one who talked to me. Mum didn't know how."