Later, she watched him walk away from her, down the lane and out of her life.

When he reached the bend in the road that would hide him from her view, she gave a cry of agony and began to run after him. Not yet, she told herself, I must see him still. Reaching the bend in the road herself, she stopped and stood watching the figure striding away from her, growing smaller and smaller.

Not once did he turn and wave, not once did he look back. In her heart she knew why. If he looked back now, he would not be able to go.

‘Jonathan.’ She breathed his name like a prayer. ‘Look at me, Jonathan. Turn around, my darling.’

But the figure grew smaller and smaller until, through the blur of her tears, she could no longer see him.

Thirty

THE days following his going were long and lonely. Ironically, when Jonathan left, it was two years almost to the day since Matthew had walked away into the mist down the same road.

‘Danny ses that nice man’s gone away. Has he, Mam?’ Kate wanted to know.

Esther swallowed the lump that rose in her throat. She took Kate on to her knee, the child leaning her head against Esther’s shoulder. ‘He had to leave suddenly.’

‘But he didn’t say goodbye to me.’ Kate’s mouth quivered.

‘He asked me . . .’ Esther added, inventing the lie, ‘to give you his love.’

‘Is he coming back? I want him to take us fishing again.’

‘I – don’t know. Maybe some day.’

‘I hope he comes back. I liked him – and so did Danny.’

‘Yes,’ Esther murmured. ‘So did I, Katie. Oh, so did I.’

Mechanically, Esther went through the motions of living. The demands of her daughter and the farm were all that kept her going. There was a numbness in her mind and an ache in her heart that was an actual physical pain in her chest. She worked till she dropped, hoping to find oblivion in exhausted sleep. The nights were the worst, when she lay alone in the darkness and relived the times she had lain in his arms. Even tears would not come to give vent to her misery.

Her grief was too deep for tears.

In the cooling days of autumn she walked the shore close to the water’s edge, hearing the ghostly laughter they had shared. She sat in the sandy hollow, the place where they had made love, her arms wrapped around herself, her body aching for his touch. Now, all she felt was a gnawing emptiness below her ribs. Even her favourite place at the end of the Spit failed to bring her solace. It seemed forsaken and lonely, and the wailing seagulls overhead seemed only to echo her own isolation. It seemed as if all feeling had gone, even her love of the land failed her now.