‘You know,’ I said, not realising what I was going to say until I heard the words come out my mouth, ‘now that I’m going to be here every second week, maybe I could help with some kind of fundraiser?’

‘Really?’ Dan grinned. ‘That would be great. I’m not bad at manual labour and fixing things up, but organisation and planning are not my strong points.’

‘I don’t know …’ I gestured around us. ‘You seem to have done a great job getting everyone organised today.’

Upon arrival at the island, Dan had broken the volunteers into groups—there were clearing and repairing teams in each hut, another couple of people on the toilet building, a few groups clearing the big debris across the island, and a number of us in the castle, removing all the rubbish and salvaging what we could of Bill’s displays and collectibles.

We talked for another few minutes about the future of Bill’s island before Dan announced it was time to get back to work.

‘Slave driver,’ I teased as I pushed myself to my feet.

‘You better believe it,’ he said and then went off to get everyone else moving again.

The first half of the day our main focus had been clearing the debris from the castle, being careful not to lift anything that might sacrifice the stability of the rocky walls, and we’d made significant progress, which meant we were now beginning to uncover some of Bill’s collectibles. With the aim to salvage anything we could, I felt like some kind of archaeologist. By midafternoon we’d amassed quite a pile.

Charlie was having fun playing excavator, but most of what he’d found so far had been bones of what looked to be small animals. When I heard his paw scrape against something in the detritus at my feet, I glanced down, expecting him to have uncovered another one, yet when he almost immediately lost interest, I stooped to investigate myself. My fingers brushed against something cool and hard beneath a pile of palm leaves. Pushing them aside revealed an old, rectangular-shaped, slightly rusty tin.

It must have been buried longer than the storm, because it took some effort for me to loosen it. I brushed off some dirt to expose the crackly image of the famous Arnott’s parrot pecking at a Nice biscuit and smiled with nostalgia. The box was so light I expected it to be empty, but tried opening it anyway. After a few attempts, the stiff lid finally budged, and I discovered dozens and dozens of handwritten letters on terribly thin, lined paper.

Without thinking, I lifted the top one and, resting the tin back down on the ground, unfolded it. It took only a few seconds to realise they were love letters.

‘What have you got there?’

I startled at the sound of Dan’s voice. ‘You shouldn’t creep up on people like that.’