Cat, halo and angel wing on an arm

The mint paint came from Heeley's ironmonger on the front, a tin left over from doing the bathroom, and Nell talked me into using it on the washhouse door. "Something cheerful for the sea wind to chew on," she said, and then she painted sunflowers up the boards in mustard and orange, with a red heart down low where the dog would never reach. We had nearly finished the feathers on the lintel when the storm came in off the mudflats and the power went with it.

That night the house filled up. Three fishermen from Lowestoft, a widow who had missed her train, and Mr Lusk, wheezing, carried down in his dressing gown to sit by the range. Tuppence came down the stairs one step at a time and settled herself in the grey light of the hall window, where the lightning made a ring of white behind her head. Her eyes stayed shut the whole time. Mr Lusk laughed until he coughed and said she looked like a saint who had been told the joke was on her.

By morning the tide had gone out and taken the storm with it. Mr Lusk went home to his daughter in Norwich, and the widow sent a postal order for twice what she owed. I still open the washhouse door every morning, and the red heart is always there low on the mint boards, and the cat is still on the third stair with her eyes closed, listening to a sea she never bothers to look at.