The northern gate of the bay was announced by a towering cliff made of square blocks. So regular were their outlines that they could have been the work of some giant mason. To the south was an island, lower and densely wooded. A swell from the south-east pushed us in with a mile either side, no urgency among the men on the deck. A wide body of water opened to the north of us, flat and serene and impossibly lovely. It made a chalky blue-green over the sandflats, a blue of royalty over the deeps, shades of lilac and mauve where a haze blended the two, further away. And in the places where waves rolled gently over reefs, other colours would dare to intrude upon the chorus of those shades; a burst of orange and brown where the surge lifted kelp to the surface, an explosion of white as the wave broke and dissipated.

Argyle set us to one side of the expanse—the north, if I remember rightly—so we were slightly in the lee of the land and lying perfectly still on a motionless surface. I could see down, down to the silver backs of circling fish, down so deep that the smallest of them, way down there, might truly be the largest.

I slept soundly that night, my body set like a timepiece in synchrony with the tiny movements of the Moonbird, shifting minutely on the anchor line when the night air swayed her. I felt the boat cared for us in our individual plights, held us cupped somehow: carrying us, rather than being sailed by us. Argyle in the middle cabin, his faraway mien. My father, the collapse of consciousness turning with the hours into something approximating normal sleep. The Connollys, finally peaceful after the brawling day, slumbering in a welter of bruises, inseparably joined.

And the doctor, the doctor. In what world did he sleep?

~

In the early light of morning it was clear my father was sick.

I spoke to the master and with his consent I lowered the jolly-boat off its davits and took my father to the rope ladder, guided him down. A small brown spider scuttled out of the rowlocks, her home disturbed. I let her run onto my hand and deposited her on the rough braids of the rope ladder. Then I rowed my father to the beach and nudged the boat into the perfect white sand.

He crawled out with some effort, felt for the depth with a pointed foot and took a few unsteady steps in the wrong direction, heading across the beach and slightly out to sea. I took hold of him and turned him: he accepted this without complaint, and stepped slowly out of the water and onto the damp sand. Here he turned and sat on his behind, exhaling loudly. ‘Don’t feel too flash this morning, love,’ he said, as though ill-health had descended upon him from nowhere at all.