We nodded, for the moment seemed a deadly serious one and there was an undertone of Da’s temper in his words. The fire crackled in the hearth and a sea-breeze got up, just enough to brush at the window. ’Tis a wicked blast that comes off the Forth sometimes and makes you think of the sea-creatures that roam there and beyond. Humpbacked whales and seals and dolphins and the like. Once a whale washed up on the beach and the stink of it was so high you could smell it all the way into town. We were told not to go near it, but Joan and me did, right up close. It was magnificent in its decay, but when Ma found out we had been down there, she said it was bad luck – bad as a curse. Da slapped us both.

‘Are you off to sea?’ Joan blurted, blushing pink as all eyes turned to her, for it was not like either of us girls to ask questions of the strangers who came a-calling.

‘As it happens, I am not off to sea, no, young lady, but am journeying on land, as I have to see a man about a job,’ Spencer answered.

Joan narrowed her eyes and pouted a bit, which I suspect was her attempt at being a flirt. ‘That will be a long journey,’ she said. ‘For there aren’t many jobs around here but fishing jobs. Are you headed north or south?’

‘You are an inquisitive lass,’ Spencer replied, sounding unimpressed. I liked him more and more now. He seemed to take no nonsense.

Joan shrugged, but this was the moment at which Spencer seemed to have made a decision, for despite his previous interested glances at Joan, he then turned his attention to me. ‘But I shall look forward to seeing you all when I come back,’ he said. And then he winked. Right at me.

Joan never forgave me for that, but she only had herself to blame for speaking out of turn and making it look like she was the sort of girl who would ask too many questions. Men don’t like girls like that.

The next few weeks dragged. I went about my chores and did half of Joan’s as well. I let Joan tell me all the gossip from the fishwives’ choir: the fallings-out and bickerings, and the rumours about which girl fancied which boy.