An eel thrashed in the beak of a cormorant and dozens of tiny terns screamed. Muriel dropped her baited pot into the creek. There wouldn’t be many crabs but she liked it here. Few fishermen came this far into the marshes.

She’d seen the planes arriving and felt the change in the air. The town was stirring again.

Muriel pulled up her crab pot. Writhing at the bottom were two green shore crabs and a beautiful brown. She lifted them out, placed them in her saltwater bucket and lowered the pot once more into the muddy creek. She was feeling lucky.

4.

A stranger was leaning on the gate to the grazing field. He was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing tanned forearms covered with golden down. His red hair was sticking up at the front, shining with grease, his mouth too big, his nose at an odd angle. Verity’s first impression was of something altogether too bright and uncomfortable to look at. And at the same time, impossible not to.

The sun, at its zenith, had burned through the cloud and now shone hot on the back of her neck. She had fed the chickens. She’d groomed her horse, Gypsy, nuzzled and whispered into his hair and left him sheltering in the shade at the edge of the paddock. Gyps had been her mother’s gift to her. He was the only living being with whom she felt fully at ease.

‘Hey, you must be Pete’s sister.’ The stranger was smoking. He looked directly at her, with an odd, arrogant smile.

He was obviously American. Verity lowered her eyes and felt her chest flush hot with something like anger. Boys she knew would never look at you like that.

‘Yes, I’ve come to fetch him. Father wants him.’

‘He’ll be here any minute now, he’s just over in that field.’ He indicated the field down to the right of the gate, but offered no explanation or apology as to why he might be there, standing so casually on their land.

‘You want one?’ He proffered a cigarette and she took it off him, then stood, foolishly holding it between her fingers.

He laughed and held out a silver lighter. Her hand shook as she tried to light the cigarette. She felt his eyes on her again.

‘I gotta tell you, you’re a lot better looking than your brother, Miss Frost.’

It was a terrible line but its effect on her was physical and immediate. Her throat constricted and she couldn’t breathe. No one had ever spoken to her like this. It was intolerable. She knew she should say something or do something but her throat was caught, she was so unused to the attention. She sucked deeply on the smoke for some relief.