Without further ado he gave her the wheel, leaned forwards to the window pane and pointed at the green sector on a distant lighthouse due west, asked her three times if she could see the green sector, and wanted to hear a clear yes. Ingrid uttered something resembling a gasp, and he ran out.

No more than a few minutes later he was back, out of breath, he peered ahead towards the lighthouse and nodded, hawked back the phlegm in his throat, grabbed the helm and began to complain about having only country bumpkins on board, now they would have to knock off the ice as soon as the sea began to wash over the stern, look, he said nodding towards the glass behind them, it looked like thin, grey sheets of slate.

Ingrid asked him if he had any help on board.

Yes, he said, his nephew, Ole, he was a canny lad, but he was in the engine room taking care of the older kids, whom they kept there because of the heat. All of them had to go before the Rations and Relocation Board in Ingrid’s home parish, which would then allocate them to those farms which had room, it was a major operation, they were about to relocate a whole bloody province. His head sank between heavy shoulders and he said fortunately it had been a mild winter . . .

“Don’t think we’ve introduced ourselves,” he said, interrupting himself. “Magnus Mannvik. From Reine.”

“Ingrid,” Ingrid said, and mumbled something about her having some family in Reine, mentioned their names, too, but she had seen something in him she didn’t like, the movements and fluster of a red-eyed, sleepless man out of kilter, she asked him if he ever got any sleep.

He laughed and muttered something about their having been up to Risøyhamn.

A huge swell dragged the deck in front of them down into a trough, they reached the bottom and were tossed up again to the sound of a distant howl. He cursed as they were thrown over the next breaker, gave her the helm, tore open the door and vanished once again.

Ingrid watched him walk, legs apart, down the wildly rolling deck, and zigzag from huddle to huddle, like a spider, as he shouted and gesticulated, yanking two figures to their feet and more or less dragging them aft and out of sight.

Ingrid tried to re-find the rhythm from her uncle’s and father’s fishing smacks, but this was a ship, and the conditions were impossible, the wheel jerked and snatched, the propeller left the water and the engine gave a hysterical roar. She was hurled against the bulkhead, wrenched the wheel in the wrong direction, the propeller got a hold again, and the boat reared as the door was torn open once more.

“Now they’re knocking seven bells out of the ice.”