‘You’ve come to summon me,’ he said brightly. ‘What’s it to be, the rigging?’

‘Yes,’ I stammered. ‘The master wants you up there.’ I cursed myself inwardly. He asserted himself with ease, imperceptibly, when he wished.

‘Very good. Let’s get about it, shall we?’ He surged ahead through the narrow doorway, brushing past me so that our bodies made contact. It was a liberty and he knew it. I watched his back as he passed my father with a nod and ascended the stairway. Damn him.

‘You slept well?’ asked my father from the edge of his cot. I had no idea whether the question was loaded in some way.

‘Yes, fine thank you, Father. Do you need any assistance?’

‘Shoes,’ he grunted. ‘Drive me mad.’

I tied the knots for him and spoke as I looked down. Even with a blind man, it is somehow easier if one avoids eye contact.

‘You are still drinking.’

‘Not your concern, love,’ he said, as if he could cling to some vestige of paternal authority.

‘It is my concern. It’s me who cleans up after you. Me who worries. Who is giving you the grog?’

‘You are not the only one on board this vessel who has my interests at heart. And if you worry so, then take me above. I am unwell.’

‘You’re always unwell.’ I took his arm and draped it over my shoulders, guided him from the bed and onto the stairs. He felt his way up and I turned at the galley and looked around for food to prepare for us both, as the dawn light filled the small space.

He was out there, I could see through the little windows, trying at first to reverse himself into the break in the gunwale to attend to his toilet, then turning back the other way to throw up. He slipped and slumped onto one side on the deck, and I saw the master rush to his side and gently lift him to his feet. I did not rush to him myself. Had I finally begun to tire of his endless self-destruction? Or had the odd roll in the doctor’s cot made clear to me what I’d been missing by devoting myself to my father? I went on making the food, sullen now. I made dough for the day’s bread and left it to prove on the sill where the light would reach it.