The church was full, as Efa had expected, so she had to stand at the back. There were only ten pews each side anyway, a wooden cross and the shadows of ancient paintings haunting damp walls. After high winds, the warden would have to sweep the sand out through the vestibule, the shifting dunes outside threatening to engulf the place of worship.

Efa remembered the families that owned the pews. How they would sit in the same ones each Sunday. Now, there was no such order. She remembered the funerals of fishermen, their coffins draped in nets, the prayers said for the drowned. As children, they were free to roam around the dunes as their parents prayed. In winter the dunes remained eerily silent, nothing but the sound of the wind in the reeds. But in summer, lizards and adders would lie lazily in the sun, whilst dark green fritillary and gatekeeper butterflies vied for space with scarlet tiger and Portland moths. She would lie listening to the hymns, the dunes ablaze around her. And once, she remembered running, following the jagged flight of a butterfly after a summer storm, and how having lost its trail she found herself standing in the wind-whipped graveyard, the sand having dissipated and shifted, revealing broken coffins and bones. She remembered standing amongst the exposed remains, her hair blowing in the wind, and knowing deep down that nobody really truly disappeared.

The mourners were mostly from the village today. The Doctor’s family. One or two in military uniform, a nod to his long service at the base. His wife was brought in on the arms of her sons to a respectful hush, her face achingly white against her black dress. The service was brief. Hymns sung without music and an invitation extended to everyone present to take tea at the church hall, which the military had kindly offered to pay for. Efa would have to be getting back.

As was tradition, the Doctor’s wife stood, exhausted, on the way out of the church, greeting each mourner. She was flanked by her worried-looking sons. Efa held her hand, touched her cheek with hers, told her what a good man her husband had been. Knew from the stunned look on her face that she would remember none of it. The church had soon warmed up with the heat of tears and candles and life so that now, as she walked out into the day, Efa felt the bitter wind knifing through her. She reached into her pocket and wrapped the colourful scarf around her, trying desperately to shrug off the cold.