Voices above me, raised in alarm. A frantic winding of the gear. They had the ship hard over on her port side, straining. I tilted out of the cabin and clawed at the stairway until I was on deck. It was dark all around now. Declan Connolly thundered past me, coils of rope over his shoulder. He saw me, whites of his eyes.

‘Yer damn father’s gone over.’

I was shocked, but also strangely resigned: of course. Of course he’d gone over. The falls, the fights, the broken glass and the cooking accidents: he lived on the edge of calamity at all times. How could I have thought we would travel without incident on the open sea? I ran to the bow and saw we were curving back into the faint white aftermath of our own wake. Our hull was cutting phosphorescence again in the black water, confounding our vision out into the darkness.

The faintest glow of stars out there. Argyle was beside me, wrapped in a dressing-gown and sash, his eyes focused intently on the gloom, counting softly under his breath. Counting down. When he reached zero he called, ‘Spill the mainsail,’ and the brothers complied. The Moonbird surged as the wake caught up with us. Argyle called, ‘Quiet,’ and began counting again, forwards now.

The sounds of the boat’s motion fell away and silence wrapped around us.

Impossible, surely. So much sea out there, and my father so weak. In all likelihood too drunk to call for help. But Argyle was perfectly still, strung like a hunting dog.

‘There.’

He pointed forward, slightly off to our starboard side. I could see nothing.

‘A landing pole or a gaff, perhaps, Declan? But be careful with him, please.’

I followed the direction he had indicated, over the slick dark surface to where it was broken by a tiny shape. Argyle ran to the helm and we veered towards it. As we drew closer I recognised the shape as my father’s back, his body slumped forward so that his face was in the water.

One Connolly went to the port in the gunwale and the brother stood behind him and grabbed a fistful of the trousers between his buttocks so he wouldn’t tumble in. Declan leaned out and swung the pole, and my breath shuddered for fear the hook on its end would sink into my father’s flesh. But when the pole struck his back he did not react.

I thought then that it had been too long, too long. He had no more will in him than the strands of kelp that hung in the water nearby. It would take so little for the sea to finish him off, to leave me finally alone.