He swept both hands away from my face again and let them complete a circle in the air. They came back without contact, with nothing to tell him, and his brow creased further; he did not believe them. His left hand rested on my right shoulder: the fingers of his right hand reached to my ear, picked a fine lock of hair and swept it back. I watched a tear form in his eye and spill free.

The doctor remained utterly still, all the life concentrated in his eyes.

My father patted my cheek gently. As he turned to find his bed again, he murmured, ‘Sometimes I worry so in the night.’

THE NIGHT, GIBBOUS MOON

THE NIGHT, GIBBOUS MOON

The flesh of the octopus-creature, though it saddened me to eat it, was delicious. I wondered whether it was wise to convey my enthusiasm to the doctor. He was watching for my verdict: in the end I smiled and put a finger to my lips to pretend I was still eating.

I sat on deck reading through the morning and into the afternoon. I had become accustomed now to the idea that the spaces below decks were too confined to spend extended time during the day. As comfortable as she was, the Moonbird’s cabins could be oppressive over long hours. Again I found the reading difficult, even now when there was so little motion under the hull. Out on the open water that separated the islands off the mainland from the cluster that would soon appear as the Furneaux group, the wind had died off and we were almost becalmed.

But the early summer sun was warm enough to offset the morning chill, and the torn-paper sky full of promise. The surfaces of the Moonbird welcomed the body: timbers that were curved and sanded and had softened off under exposure to the salt wind and the sun. Fittings that made sonorous plinks and thwacks.

Argyle stood at the helm in a dress of coarse grey cotton, much like a servant might wear, and draped round his neck was a bright muslin kerchief. The brothers busied themselves in small labours about the deck. The doctor came up from below and brought his working board with him. I averted my eyes, even while I watched him. He claimed he preferred the light up here in the middle of the day, good for fine work, provided the wind wasn’t too fresh. He kept smiling my way, trying to make a co-conspirator of me. The night before, I had concluded, was an aberration: a thing that didn’t exist if I refused to let it.