Matching heart lettering tattoos on two feet

The lock at Hatton has a new gate, which means we are tied up below it tonight with the kettle on and Dad snoring in the wheelhouse like a stuck engine. I found your old stencil sheet in the tin with the tiller pins. The man at Stourport did ours on the same afternoon, you remember, sat on the bench outside the chandlery with the sun going down over the basin while the needle buzzed and you swore at every line.

I kept my half of the heart and you kept yours, and we agreed the words only make sense when they meet, the cursive running round the curve so one side finishes where the other begins. I have been thinking about that all day, lock after lock, the water rising under us and falling away again until my arms ache from the paddles.

So here is my news. I am not coming down to Brentford for the winter. Dad says I should go, the company wants a cook on the Trent boats, and I have said yes. I know you will be cross. I know you will say I always decide things on the water and never on land.

I have laid the two halves of the stencil on the table, the paper curling at the corners, and they close up the way they always did when we were girls. I am posting this one to you at the basin tomorrow. I am keeping the other half in the tin with the pins, where you will find it when you come looking, as you always do.