Nefyn remained in the doorway, a palpable stillness to her. She looked pale this morning, gaunt. Her dark hair almost black. A thin dress. A cardigan. Looking at her, he sometimes couldn’t fathom how they had been born together. It had happened at home, their mother determined not to leave the house, and when the midwife eventually arrived and brought him into the world, she placed him quickly aside in order to deliver Nefyn. She had arrived en caul, her amniotic sac still intact, completely unaware of the fact that she had been born. Their exhausted mother had looked in on Nefyn’s self-contained serenity before the midwife jabbed at the sac that enfolded her. Tore it, much to their mother’s anger. It was only then that Nefyn howled, as if she were being killed. Sometimes Joseph wondered whether she had ever really been ready for this world. That night, their father had bought a round of drinks and they rang the bell in the low-beamed bar of The Ship; babies born in water brought great luck.

Joseph noticed that her eyes were still searching his face. His shoulders softened.

‘I know it’s hard for you, but we’ve got to buy food.’

When he was younger, he had tried to find work locally, but the questions and the goading soon became intolerable. The fact that he still lived with his sister, the fact that she ‘wasn’t all there’. He learnt that retaliation brought trouble, and passivity brought more abuse, so it was easier to hitch a ride to the north coast. Work anonymously. Friendly but distant. And it would do for a while, for a week or two, but as the days rolled by, a restlessness would grow in him, a listening-out, more complicated than duty or guilt, until he had to come home. He watched her green eyes become troubled. Fingers picking at fingernails.

‘You can’t go. There’s a storm on the way, I can feel it.’

Joseph rolled his eyes. ‘Here we go.’

‘It’s true, this time.’ Her voice faltered. She looked away for a moment. ‘I’m sure it is.’ Joseph picked up his bag and pushed past her into the narrow kitchen.

‘There’s plenty of firewood there,’ he said. He took some packets of tea, biscuits, pushed them into his bag. Nefyn watched as Joseph took a bottle of pills from his pocket, turning to fill a glass with water. He tipped a tablet out on to his palm and placed it on the wooden table between them. Pushed it towards Nefyn.

‘Take it,’ he said.

Nefyn studied him with cool eyes, folded her arms, making the most of the little agency she had. She watched a flicker of irritation cross his face. ‘Come on,’ he coaxed. ‘You know they’re for your own good.’