The Silver Dark Sea. Susan Fletcher

How did it happen? Be safe, boys. Drop me a postcard, sometime.

      But they fly. It is what the fledged birds must do, and she’s always known that. The nest can’t always be full.

      She looks at Nan. Nancy aged six and three-quarters, who is far from fledged, thank God. There are the great surprises in life, and then there is Nan who was conceived after half a bottle of sweet sherry and a fumble on the sofa when Dee was nearly forty-four. She’d thought it was her menopause until she was sick in the footwell of the car. The risks … Ed had been nervous. But a life had been made so the life must be born. And now that life is swinging her legs on the bench outside.

      Above them, and above the stone wall, is the sea. Wide, wide water. In the far distance is the white dot of the Morning Star and the trail of white water she leaves in her wake. It will be a house of girls tonight – just Dee and her youngest daughter. She wraps her arms around herself. Her other son, too, is on the Star – her second oldest child, with his stoop and silences, with his migraines which make him whimper with the pain. Sam, who loiters near Crest, runs along the coastal path or stays in his room, lifting weights. He does not do much more than this. No speaking, no letting go of the old ghosts. He trawls his self-blame as boats trawl their nets; it gathers everything, and slows him down, and one day she fears he’ll go under.

      * * *

      At Lowfield, the nurse is outside. She stands in her garden and watches the wind, as it blows through the grass. The nettle patch at Litty whitens, for the undersides of the leaves are paler than their tops. She loves these small moments.

      In comes a car with a broken exhaust.

      Emmeline parks, and climbs out. She leans into the back of the car and lifts out a large black plastic bag; the plastic has stretched and greyed in places where Emmeline’s fingers have been. Here.

      Perfect. Tabitha goes to it. The bag is passed over as a child might be – with the nurse’s hand going underneath it, bringing the bag to her chest. I’m sorry I had to ask, but it’s all I could think of.

       I’ll want them back.

       You’ll get them back. Of course you will.

       And I don’t want them torn. Or damaged.

       They’re already torn and damaged – aren’t they?

      Emmeline sniffs, ignores her. Has he said anything yet?

       Not much.

       His name?

      No. Thank you for these. And Tabitha goes inside.

      In the kitchen, she unties the bag and reaches in. There is a cream shirt, a blue jumper with a hood. Socks. T-shirts. They are clothes that Tabitha partly remembers. They were Tom’s – fraying, stained or worn-out clothes that he’d kept at his mother’s house. For once he’d met Maggie, he’d wanted to make room for her clothes – in his wardrobe, up at Crest.