Lyric treble clef across the ribs

The last ferry left for the mainland before the gale, so this letter will have to travel on the fish lorry. I finished the score for the Lighthouse Choir this morning, forty-one pages in my cramped hand. Mr Pell wanted the treble clef drawn to look like the harbour chain, all coils and no tidy ends. I told him a clef is a clef. He told me I had no soul. We laughed over the ink pot, which was new for a Tuesday.

Your room above the chandler's still smells of tar and oranges. I went up on Sunday to fetch the cracked metronome you left behind and found the window latched from the inside, as if you had only stepped out for bread. I stood there with the metronome ticking in my palm, counting a bar nobody else would hear. Down on the slipway the gulls were squabbling over a split crab, and I thought how much you would have enjoyed their rudeness.

The second verse is the one that sticks. We wrote it on the back of a chart-room receipt during that storm, you singing the melody off-key while I scribbled the words underneath. Pell has asked for one word in red at the lower curve, the word we argued over until the lamp guttered. I have chosen it, as you would have wanted, and it looks better than either of us deserved.

Come home on the spring tide if you can, and bring the blue pencil you pinched from the customs office. I will keep the piano open at the second verse until you do. If the sea is rough, sing it to the gulls. They have no taste, but they are patient listeners.