The harbourside was busy, a stream of worried boat owners surveying the damage. Not fishermen – they were long gone – but the sons of fishermen, fiercely protective of the hobby dinghies, which, although rarely used, represented a part of themselves that they were unwilling to let go. Two men in yellow jackets were brushing the shale back into the water off the harbour walls. Redefining limits. Reinstating boundaries that had been blurred by the storm. Efa led Emrys to the café and sat him down before ordering some tea. A young girl with eyeliner too heavy for her perfect eyes took her order.

Although largely empty, the talk was of the road collapse to the north. The pictures in the paper. The Doctor. Efa had read the newspaper early this morning. She had picked it up from the doormat, smoothed it out on the kitchen table. The instinct to go and tell Emrys the news had started to fade. Emrys had known him, they both had.

The Doctor had been the one who gently asked Emrys those first questions. He had known to come to the house of course, supposedly for a cup of tea, knowing that Emrys would not come to the surgery to see him. Efa had set about boiling the kettle, all the while consumed with guilt that for the first time in over fifty years, she was complicit with another man behind her husband’s back. The Doctor asked him about the year. The time. Efa tried not to react as Emrys digressed, avoided the answers, left strange pauses in the middle of his speech. A few weeks later, Efa sat in the Doctor’s office, handbag in her lap as he kindly confirmed her suspicions. He had expressed sympathy not with words, but with silence. She said that they had had a good life together. Many years of happiness. He answered that it was human nature, that however much happiness we’ve had, we yearn for more. He would help her weather the storm.

Efa had gone upstairs and sat on their bed this morning. Emrys had looked at her blankly and stroked her back gently, feeling that something was amiss with his wife.

Efa smiled as the young girl brought over their tea, set it down absent-mindedly. There would be a public funeral, they said. Once the body was released. It was a pity, added one. A great pity, but they consoled themselves that he had had a good life. Wasn’t it strange? And just like that, the swell of their conversation stopped and they went back to their breakfasts. Emrys was looking at her. She smiled, reached out to touch the side of his face and whispered, ‘Come on now, drink your tea before it gets cold.’