‘There are so many things …’ he tried to explain. He tried to think of something to tell her. Of home. But the fragmented words were ruins in his mouth. ‘It has been nine years since I have been home.’ Nefyn thought about this. Could not imagine it. ‘I hate it.’ Nefyn pulled her cardigan around her. Listened. ‘War. It takes away so many ways of talking about home. It smothers everything. People think it’s the fighting, but it’s more than that. The horror is gentler than that. It dominates stories. Rubs out tradition, kindness, joy, makes people’s lives invisible.’ Hamza stopped. Drew a long breath.

‘Have you always lived here?’ he asked. Nefyn nodded.

‘I was born here, in this cottage,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve never left the cove.’

Hamza smiled, looked at her. Her seeming isolation. Questions stirred inside him but he did not take the liberty of asking them. She looked away again. There was something of the tide about her. Sometimes somehow close, within his grasp, but at others slipping away. They sat in silence for a moment.

Nefyn got up, suddenly preoccupied, and reached for the box that she had placed the specimens in. Pulled it into her lap. Looked up uncertainly before opening it. She picked up a transparent by-the-wind sailor, smiled softly, and handed it to him. He took its exquisite form in his fingers. Let his pupils widen and focus.

‘You collect things?’

Nefyn nodded.

They spent the day looking through the objects, one by one. Holding them between them: shells, herring-gull skulls, brittle stars and egg cases split and gaping. Delicate. Fragile. Lit from within. Nefyn explained them to him, their shapes, colours, structures. Their infinite variety and the way they adapted in order to survive. The way the molluscs built their shells around them, layer by layer, day by day, and the wonder that they shared common patterns. Hamza smiled, listened. Her face became animated as she held each object like words that had washed ashore, the fragments of a story of which she was determined to make sense.