Semper Fidelis lettering across upper back

The Kittiwake came in on Tuesday with her hold half empty and her stern rail scraped down to bare wood, and Mr Abbott says the weather took the lettering clean off. I went down to the quay to see for myself. Only the S is left, and the F at the far end, the rest gone to salt and grey. You always said the paint would outlast us both. You were wrong about that, but you're not wrong about much else, so don't start now.

I've had the signwriter from Lowestoft out to look at it, a thin man called Pell with ink under every nail, and he says he can match the old blackletter if the boat's up the slip before the spring gales. He wants eleven pounds and a pot of the good red. I told him I'd ask you first, though I already knew what you'd say. Mum has been on at me about the coal, the gas man came twice, and I've been sleeping on your side of the bed because mine goes cold so quickly now.

Nobody on the quay has asked me whether I still mean it. Mrs Gill asked after the boat and not after you, and I took that as a kindness. The lads down at the Ship keep buying me halves, the way they did when you first went out, and I let them, and then I walk home past the fish sheds with the gulls screaming over the bins. I know what the words say, Joe. Latin is a language that never gets rained off.

Bring the rest of the letters home when you come, the S and the F. Pell can work from those. I'd rather have the thing made new than pretend the old one never wore down. Tell Danny his mother sends her love and she's still waiting on the sixpence he owes her.

Your wife, Nell