This hopelessness. It was the way I understood love. It had been so ever since I could remember.

When I was done I took myself on deck and dropped the rope ladder off the stern. Behind a screen of sail, I peeled away my reeking, soiled clothes and plunged with them into the sea. The cold water revived me, cleared away the doubts and the fears, and for ten minutes I was whole again.

~

My father made his usual way through the morning’s uneasy truce.

I have been told it is the way of all drinkers to attempt restitution in the light of a new day. Having shaved by feel at the water cask, he made breakfast for us all, fumbling and crashing in the galley, but somehow producing pemmican and fried morsels of the fish which the doctor had been collecting. I sat at the top of the steps and looked through the windows at him to ensure he was in no danger from the stove. Several times I saw him raise a hand to the place at the back of his head where the doctor had struck him.

Finally, the anger got the better of me. I stepped in and closed the small door that shut off the galley.

‘Where did it come from?’

He turned at the sound of my voice and, as he always did, he reached for my hand. I took his. I could not leave him stranded, feeling the air, and perhaps that was the genius of the gesture.

‘Cut myself,’ he said. He probed at a deep nick in the fold of his jowls. The blood had dried dark red on it. ‘Fingers. Hmm, I don’t know. Odd. Numb.’

He never nicked himself. Not even on the worst of mornings: this was new. But I would not allow him to change the subject.

‘Where did it come from, Father?’

‘Where did what come from, my dear?’

I sighed. ‘The grog. Last night.’

His brows descended in doubt. ‘What grog?’

‘You can lie to the world but you can’t fool me. You were drinking. Where did you get the grog?’

He squeezed my hand. ‘What makes you think so?’

‘Oh, there were clues. I cleaned your supper off your face.’

Again, the look of baff lement. ‘Really? Must have been seasick. Thank you so—’

‘It was dead calm last night. And we were at anchor.’

His face darkened to a scowl. ‘And you have been a seafarer, what? A week?’

I gave up and returned above, to find Connolly had weighed the anchor and was now setting sails under the master’s direction. The morning light showed a ruffling on the surface, a fresh wind from the north-west. Out at the landless horizon whence it came, a vague line of cloud was forming. According to the master, the long succession of fine days was coming to an end and a westerly change would be upon us.