Compass, pocket watch and map sleeve

The lion went to the knacker's yard on Tuesday and the bank took the big top on Thursday, so you will understand why I am writing on the back of an old Lincoln handbill. The compass you left with me is still on the ledger shelf. I wind the pocket watch every morning out of habit, though there is nothing left to be punctual for.

Mrs Galloway from the council came to count the wagons. She asked for the route book, and I gave her the one with your handwriting scrawled over the county map, the pencilled crosses where we pitched at Skipton, Thirsk and the other towns that paid in coin rather than promises. She traced your note about the river crossing at Selby with one gloved finger and asked what it meant. I told her it meant we once knew where we were going.

The money is the difficulty. Eleven pounds, four shillings, and one Bank of England note so old the ink has gone brown at the edges, which the children used to treat as a conjuring trick. Last night I counted it three times at the kitchen table and got the same sum each time, which is either a mercy or an insult.

Here is what I have decided. I am taking the watch, the compass and that brown note to the coast on the early train. The rest can go to the auctioneer with the painted wagons. If you come back to Whitby before the month is out, I will be on the harbour wall with the tide tables, and we can work out together which way the wind is blowing.

Yours in the old weather, Dell