Roaring big cat and compass on a forearm

You'll think I've lost my nerve, writing to you at two in the morning the night before the wedding, but the sofa is too small for me and the compass keeps knocking the windowsill whenever the wind comes off the estuary. I've taken it out of the drawer. The glass is cracked across the N and the needle still swings round to nowhere it can agree on.

Mum wanted the cathedral. Tom wanted the registry office with the squeaking chairs. I said the Bell Inn, the old stone lion over the yard arch with the chipped mane, because I'd like to be married under something that doesn't pretend to be gentle. Mum says that isn't how brides talk. I told her I'm not a bride yet, only a woman with a borrowed hat and a sore thumb from pinning buttonholes.

Dad carried that compass through three winters on the Lancashire coal boats. He used to say the needle never lies, only the people reading it. Even when his hands shook in the cold, he tapped the glass every morning the way you'd check on a sleeping dog. I want you to take it on the day, pinned inside your coat, and when the vows come round, point it at the door and let it tell you which way is home.

I'm not sure I'll manage the words without the wind taking them. But I'll be looking up at the lion's blue eyes, and I'll think of Dad stood beside me, and that will do. Bring the good scissors. Tom has promised to cut the cake with his teeth if I ask him nicely.

Love, Bea