It suddenly struck him that he had said the last sentence out loud. At her house Edith stopped at the gate and for the first time looked at him.

‘For you I will be a better man than I was,’ he said. Her expression didn’t change. ‘I know you don’t love me but…’ Each word a stepping stone across an emotional river.

Still her eyes didn’t leave his face until, in the yard, she opened the door and he could tell she was not going to invite him in.

‘I have to talk to your father,’ he said by way of an excuse. ‘He must pay the fine for not attending church.’

He followed Edith inside. Her father was half-dressed and drunk. The butcher, ignoring the cabinet maker, watched Edith. She walked past her father, hung up her shawl, took off her hat then let down the two white plaits that were wrapped round her head and undid them. She shook them out and her hair fell about her in a thick snowfall of white that she quickly twisted into a knot. The butcher was mesmerised.

‘I know who has taken my daughter’s voice,’ said the cabinet maker suddenly. ‘It’s the bloodless.’

The butcher grabbed the blubbering drunk by the arm.

‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow you are to go and fetch the fish for the betrothal supper.’

‘Fish?’ repeated the cabinet maker, finding sobriety. ‘How in this weather am I to get fish? We are all but cut off from the town.’

‘Fish,’ said the butcher, ‘is the traditional food for a betrothal supper. I expect nothing less.’

And with that he left.

The cabinet maker waited until he was sure that the butcher’s feet crunching in the snow were taking him away.

‘And there I was worried about the bloodless,’ he said. ‘No, it will be a fish that puts me in my grave. If only you would speak up, Edith. A word from you would stop the wedding dress being made. Stop me having to risk my life for a fish. I’ve always done my best for you and yet you do and say nothing.’

Edith understood that she needed to keep her expression blank, that any sign of emotion would be fuel to her father’s fire. When she had the power of speech there had always been rows. Arguing made him no better. He would shout and threaten, his sudden rages would drown out all she had to say. There are two people in a conversation, one person in an argument. Her father argued with the dead as if by shouting at the past he might bring back another chance, not just another bottle.