Chapters (39)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Epilogue
- Author’s note
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
Anna found the box with her bedding in it and pulled it out. Then, after hesitating for a second, she found another box – they were all carefully labelled, even though she’d had so little to pack – and slit it open. There, on the top, was a photograph in an old silver frame, a gateway to a happier past. She’d been about four when it was taken, during a family holiday on a beach somewhere, probably in Wales. She was on her father’s shoulders, chubby white legs dangling down over his chest. Anna was holding an ice cream, which had melted all over her fingers and was about to drip into her father’s hair. Her mother was trying to catch it, gripping her husband’s arm with one hand as she stood on tiptoe, stretching out an open palm to stop the drip. They were both laughing, and it had always struck Anna that it said a lot about them as a family, that this was the photograph her parents had chosen as worthy of a frame and a place on the mantelpiece. It had been the first thing she had reached for when she went in to clear the house in the wake of her dad’s death. It spoke to her of a simple happiness she had not yet attained in adult life, and now doubted she ever would.
Taking the photograph, her bedding and a bag of groceries, Anna went back to her tiny house. She dumped the shopping on one of the worktops, climbed the stairs and propped the photograph beside the bed. She took off her shoes, and then tugged open the plastic that covered the mattress. Sinking onto it, she pulled her duvet to her, not caring that she was still in her clothes, the bed was not properly made and that she had not eaten since breakfast. She fell asleep to the sound of the waves crashing around the feet of the Fishergirl’s Luck.
Four
Anna woke to darkness, disoriented and hungry. For a moment she had no idea where she was. Then the sound of the sea brought her back to Crovie, to the Fishergirl’s Luck and to herself. She got up to turn on the light, stumbling from beneath the tangle of duvet, her bare feet touching the chill of the wooden floor. She searched the edges of the unfamiliar doorframe until her fingers found the switch, then blinked blindly in the stark light until she could focus enough to read the watch still on her wrist. It was almost five o’clock in the morning.