The Tower followed this: a symbol of ruin. A structure I had come to rely on would be razed to the ground.

And my guide through the aftermath? The Two of Swords: a blindfolded woman sitting at the water’s edge, her weapons crossed protectively at her chest, unwilling to see, unwilling to know – for now. A difficult balancing act lay ahead, before I could be gifted a final truth.

The last card – more swords, three of them piercing a heart.

Margaritte sat back and sighed. ‘Our deepest fears,’ she said. Then, ‘Death, more death.’

I had been a guest at that table enough times to know that hanged men and punctured hearts were not to be read literally. Even the death card itself, with its skeleton riding a horse into town, didn’t necessarily mean a life would be lost. These cards indicated an end, one that might involve pain and struggle, but one that also offered the possibility of a brilliant, new beginning.

Margaritte’s eyes were red. A tear slipped down the creases of her cheek.

‘We lost ten men fifteen summers ago,’ she said.

I pushed away from the table, confused, perhaps a little scared.

‘I know,’ I replied, ‘but what’s that got to do with –’

‘I think we might lose more.’

‘Right.’ I had no idea why this should show itself in my cards; there were no fishermen in our family. ‘And you think another boat will go down?’

Margaritte shook her head. ‘You weren’t there.’

‘I was there,’ I replied. ‘I do remember.’

I had seen the reverberations at least. I was twelve years old. I understood what the small boats were searching for – wreckage. The wives stood at a safe distance on the East Bay, praying for the tide to be charitable and return the bodies. One of the women started up a call-and-return folk song about hearts dissolved by salt – Come back, my bonny boy, turn back. A ceremony on the cobbles followed in the weeks afterwards, my father part of a choir of men singing ‘Eternal Father, Strong to Save’, those voices so deep they vibrated within me, as if I was singing too.

Paul had brought up the accident at the breakfast table some time later and Dad had rapped him hard across the knuckles with a spoon, told him: ‘We don’t speak of men who are taken by the sea.’