Joseph felt their mother’s absence as a wound inflicted. And his anger had grown with the years until he had gone down to the sea sometimes and spat and raged at it. Love wasn’t enough. Their mother had shown him that. The bond that she had with them meant nothing. Blood was thinner than water. He had even felt for their father, as one night he woke and sat in his vest outside their parents’ room listening to him sob. Heard him explaining to acquaintances that his wife had left. Helped him clear all her things from the cottage, piling up her clothes outside the house and setting it all on fire. Watching as the soot and the sparks were carried over the dark sea by the wind, and the embers sickened on the floor.

Joseph turned once again and continued his way towards the main road. Hamza had to leave, he knew that. Once that was done, then they would find a new way forward.

Emrys was tiring. Hamza could sense it in the hesitancy of his hands, the smile he gave when he was buying time to think. They had been working on the boat all morning and she was so very near completion. Only the water would be able to test her, of course, but Emrys was happy and that was good enough for Hamza.

‘Come,’ he said to Emrys, touching his arm gently, ‘you need to rest.’ Emrys looked at him a moment, nodded. Hamza sat down, gestured to Emrys to do the same. He opened the flask of black tea that Nefyn had given him. Listened as the stopper opened, and the steam curled into the air. He poured two enamel mugs as Emrys sighed his way on to the upturned oil barrel. Hamza handed him the cup and they listened a while to the gulls carousing over the cove. Black-headed and common, all swirling in the air as if enlivened by the change of temperature that was coming.

‘She was very beautiful,’ Emrys said, clearing his throat. His voice had become threadbare in recent years, Efa had noticed it. It came from the top of his chest, as his lungs had become shallower. She had often wondered whether his voice was leaving him too. Hamza looked at the boat.

‘She still is.’

Emrys smiled.

‘I mean Arianell.’

Hamza’s brow furrowed.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘I meant. I’m sorry …’ Emrys searched a moment for an explanation, names. ‘Nefyn’s mother, Arianell.’

‘I didn’t know you knew her.’

‘Efa and I both did.’

His hands were veined, large, the skin paper-thin, littered with sun marks, just like his grandfather’s. ‘My grandmother told me stories, when I was a child. About them. How they were different.’

Hamza listened. Warming his hands on his mug.