Two days ago Tom had managed to resolve Clive’s issue about time and money in the same moment as he had faced an entirely new challenge. This one had the potential to stall the build for the foreseeable future, if not scupper his designs entirely: how to get the drill delivered. It was pretty hefty, coming as it did with a rig. The snow had cut off the road through the trees and a helicopter was out of their budget. In the end, it was Dag who saved the day – he had a friend with a boat out in Ålesund. He could pick up the drill and deliver it for a bit of petrol money. They’d still have to haul the drill up the cliff from the base of the fjord, but that was small potatoes compared to getting a helicopter. For the first time Tom feels excited about this build, as though he’s stepping out of the black pit of mourning and into some lighter section of the tunnel. Dag and Erik are legends, the pair of them. They are invested in this house, know what it means to him. They get it.

The night the boat arrives, fog has enveloped the fjord. Tom stands on the shoreline of the fjord, shivering and clammy. He’s only ten feet from the cliff and yet he can’t see it. It’s completely swallowed up by thick, pearly mist. The boat appears first as a single glow in the gloom, like a steamer arriving up the Thames in Victorian London.

‘Good to see you, mate,’ he tells Dag, who’s standing on the topside.

‘G-good to see you, too. Now the f-fun begins.’

It takes them three hours of solid graft to haul the drill up the cliff. On a clear night it would be a bit of a challenge; on a night as foggy as this one, when all their head torches merely bounce off the mist and one man can’t see another just two rungs above, it feels like the elements are combining against them. Tom is sweating buckets from sheer stress alone, never mind the exertion of hefting the drill up a frigging cliff. Clive has mysteriously made himself scarce for the night. Derry needed to be somewhere in the city, apparently. But he has Erik and Dag here, and a dozen of their friends who are giving of their time to help out a widower with his build.

He could cry when they reach the top. It’s a victory in itself, even though there is so much more of the house to build. So much yet that could go wrong. But the new Tom, the one who’s being forged in the flames of grief and single parenthood and a prevailing fear that he is screwing up his daughters, decides that the only reality is now. No more talk of yet. Celebrate the victories when they come.