At some point the master came by, looked without comment at the net and the birds, and said we would sail at dawn. The folds of the dress were clean again, dappled in that gentle evening light. His solemn face evoked goodness. I wanted so desperately to trust him, as I no longer trusted myself.

GRASS ELEGY

GRASS ELEGY

I had slept on the floor of the cramped bunkroom, elbows and knees uncomfortably pressed against the risers of the cots either side. I wanted to be beside my father in case the tremens returned and I was needed, but he slept deeply and so did I.

And this, I remember, is how the day declared itself.

Cries from above, running feet. An instant of terror that my father had gone over again; but he was beside me, already awake, feeling for the edge of his cot. The doctor’s cabin door was open down the short passage: I do not recall him having stepped over me in the night, but there was no other way for him to come and go. Bright sunlight flooded in through every opening. I had learnt to feel for movement: we were still, though the dawn must have been long before.

My father, the cries. I did not know whether to aid him or run to the crisis—whatever it was—above.

Him, always him first. I took his arm over my shoulders and helped him up. He was still dressed, thankfully. With my hands on the backs of his shoulders I guided him to the short steps. His fingers found the handrail and he went up ahead of me, mapping the boat as he went. At the top he turned right and went forward, following the sounds. I went after him.

What struck me first was the intensity of the sun. The morning was cloudless, hot. No sails had been set. The net was still rigged above us but now emptied.

My father was rushing towards the bow, feeling for obstacles. A touch on the cabin wall, one on the bulwark, brushing his fingers over the bullseyes. The doctor, the master and Declan Connolly were at the apex of the bow, crowded together and looking down. Around their feet the anchor line lay in heavy coils, spooled off the windlass in a way I knew the master would not have permitted.

I rushed to them: my eyes followed theirs.

Below us, through the bottle-green water, the chain trailed away and pointed like an accusing finger at a human face. On the seabed, his lower legs obscured by a thick carpet of grasses, Angus Connolly was entrapped, tangled in the anchor line, eyes upturned towards the Moonbird. His mouth was open: his face frozen between terror and mere disappointment.