Anchor, infinity loop and script quote

The ferry came over on Tuesday with the post bag and nothing else, so you'll forgive the paper, it's the back of the tide table. Mrs Penhallow has taken the Greyhen out again and says the weather will hold until Friday, though she said the same last month and we lost the lobster pots anyway. Dad's old mooring chain is still coiled at the slip where you left it. I've not moved it. Nobody else would touch it either.

I went up to the chandlery on Monday to ask Eli Vosper about the anchor you wanted re-galvanised before you went south. He had it wrapped in sacking under the counter, the big one with the crossbar worn bright at the ends. He wouldn't take my money for the job. He said a man should be able to find his way back to a harbour if he has something heavy enough to hold him still. I told him that was the sort of thing you say when you've been drinking, and he laughed and gave me the change in pennies.

Mum's loop of wire is still on the kitchen wall, the one she bent into a figure of eight the summer before she died. I've started to think it looks like the infinity sign you drew on the back of my hand at Christmas, the one that smudged in the bath. Every night I trace it with my thumb before the lamp goes out. The gull on the fence watches me do it like I'm mad.

Come home when the herring run is over. Bring the anchor back with you, or leave it at the slip where it can do some good. Either way I'll keep the kettle warm and the lamp lit on the landing, so you can find the way up from the water.

Love, Nell