COVER

About the Author

Rebecca Netley grew up as part of an eccentric family in a house full of books and music, and these things have fed her passions.

Family and writing remain at the heart of Rebecca’s life. She lives in Reading with her husband, sons and an over-enthusiastic dog, who gives her writing tips.

The Whistling is Rebecca Netley’s debut novel and won the Exeter Novel Prize.

DEDICATION

For my husband, Hugh
and beautiful sons,
Thomas and James.

EPIGRAPH

Stealthy as the winter frost, it found a rip upon the air.

And slipped from death to walk the night

But left no footstep there.

Anon

Part One

1

1860

I was one of only five passengers taking the boat to Skelthsea. There were no friends or relatives to wave me off and little comfort to be found inside my good wool coat. Wind blew in from a sea that was the grey of lead and the scream of gulls was harsh on the morning lull. As the boat rounded the rocks and approached the jetty, I picked up my cases and followed the others down the rutted pier.

I was helped on deck, where it began to drizzle; a thin, spitting squall, icier than I could have imagined, and I steadied myself with the rail as the vessel tipped this way and that. My fellow travellers showed scant interest in me other than a passing glance, and why should they? I have the sort of face and figure that is unremarkable – a complexion without bloom and eyes shadowed by sleepless nights.

The final passenger, a woman in her early middle age, smiled at me once before disappearing below.

Deckhands lugged boxes of supplies from the jetty and it was another forty-five minutes before the steamboat left the harbour. As if on cue, the rain fell in earnest, pitting the sea.

‘You’d do well to go down, out of the weather, missy,’ the captain said.

But although gusts lashed at my cheeks, I wanted to hold that moment a fragment longer and did not seek the cabin until a sea mist fell and the land was finally lost from view. Until then, I believe I had not fully realized my decision. Even as I had packed and laid my clothes carefully in the cases, it had seemed that I was in some dream. My friend had watched me from the bedroom door, and shaken her head with something like pity.

‘Are you sure it’s wise, Elspeth?’ she had pressed. ‘To leave all your friends behind? The only life you know?’

But I had held tight to the letter – and to the way it lit a candle in a dark place. My friend had sighed. And meanwhile, I envisaged Skelthsea, its crags dotted with gulls, how waves might crash and break on the rocks, and a tide that washed the sands endlessly new.