Bird silhouette on a foot

The cormorant came back to the skerry the week after you left, and I have been keeping count of it on the back of the tide table like you asked. Eleven mornings now. It sits low on the black rocks with its neck held up like a question, then slides into the water without a ripple, and I swear it looks at the window every time. Mam says I am daft. Perhaps I am.

The boat is still tied at the slip where you left it, and the paint has gone chalky from the wind. Hamish from the shop asked whether you were coming back for the lobster season, and I told him I did not know, which is the truth. I went out on Thursday in the little dinghy to see if the bird would let me near it. It would not. It just watched me row closer with its head tilted, then dived, and when it came up again it was a long way off, a dark line on the grey water, as if it had decided the matter for both of us.

I have started leaving the lamp lit in the top room of the keeper's cottage, the one with the cracked glass, so that if you come round the point in the dark you will know which house is ours. The bird keeps watch on the rocks below it. I think you would like that. I think you would have drawn it already, with your sharp little pencil and your tongue between your teeth.

Write soon, or come on the Friday boat and bring the pencil. I will be on the slip at noon, and if the bird is there, I will tell you what it thinks of you.

Yours, Ailsa