Lighthouse and ship's wheel with banners

The 4.12 is late again, so I am writing this on the back of a timetable and will copy it fair at the boarding house tonight. Mrs Pryce says the rain will hold until Thursday. The platform at Carrick Road smells of wet coal and salt, which is the only way I know I am still near you at all.

Father's wheel is still propped against the wall of the lamp room, isn't it? I keep picturing the brass gone green at the spokes where his hands used to rest. You wrote that the light came on at dusk and you counted the flashes like beads on a string until the sky went grey. Here I count porters, milk churns and clocks that never agree. The stationmaster asked me this morning whether I was going or coming. I told him I had not decided, and he laughed as though that were a fine joke.

The truth is that I have stood on this platform three Thursdays running with a ticket in my glove and no notion which train to take. Every time one pulls out westward I watch its last carriage lamp until it bends into the cutting, and I think of the rock and the white tower and you climbing those iron stairs with the oil can.

So here is my plan, and you must not argue. On Thursday I will take the 4.12 as far as Penhallow Bend, where the line runs close enough to the cliffs that the beam shows through the dusk. Keep it burning until I pass. If the glass is dirty, polish it. I will press my face to the window and you will know it is me.

Your loving sister, Nell