You could stand in front of the house and collect eight ways of seeing blue before your eye had met the furthest island, to which Lorne had moved with his dog, his dinghy and his son long before Gavin Whelan bought Thornshields from old Lorne.Lorne’s parents were relieved but shy about the transaction. The sea between them at other times was defined in colour in apposition to the mood of the little drops of land themselves, that often was itself at odds with the temper of the mainland. Here was the pink-faced house, two hundred years old, at the head of the sealoch to show for it, and frail tough little Nora to put in the house.Thornshields looked out down a low belt of islets that seemed at dawn and twilight to be attached to one another. Intrigued by the idea that her lover, her betrothed now, or she herself might say the wrong thing in response to Lorne’s words, and hoping that neither of them would at quite this moment, but might use the very words later, Nora idly offered herself the idea of being about to live with the gentleman plasterer rather than his employer, whom she would wed and who had done so well hereabouts in animal feeds.
Gavin had done well. She’d not be caught as easily as pigeons, pheasants, shrimps..

“It’s perfectible so long as you keep it wet and moving,” said Lorne, and he made a beautiful subduing swoop over the wall to flatten the blushing plaster whose chalky convalescent smell filled the half-tamed room. She woke at two o’clock – a little later than the night before, but no less memorably. She took an early breakfast by the fire.She pulled more roots to take back from their honeymoon, and hid them in the car. She’d try what Mrs Caraway had recommended and candy them in baked syrup She’d have to share them with her husband, she supposed. She’d have to share with him what she had found out on her own, but not just yet Marriage was for life, she reminded herself There was no need for haste It would be a joy to make him wait.

He could not wait to have her back home where things between him and his bride could settle down, could grow This time she recognised the symptoms when they came Her hair and skin were soaking wet, exactly as before Her mouth was full of spit, and then was dry and papery. She lay down on the dunes and waited, while her breathing thinned and thickened.Rosa pulled some roots again that day for supper. Her husband had gone off to get some eggs and milk from the farm. He said the free food of the countryside had been a disappointment They’d been naive. She made herself some tea and took it, with a spoon and the half-empty bowl of grated eringo, blackberries and sugar, into the living room There was a little warmth left in the fire. She wrapped a table cloth around her shoulders, and pulled a stool up to the ashes She finished off the eringo She licked the bowl During the night the root had marinated with the berries.