Skull in astronaut helmet flash

The tide turned at four and I have been awake since, listening to the mooring chain knock against the bow like someone wanting in. Dad would have said the river was counting its debts. You always thought he was daft about the river, and he was, but he was right about the chain.

Ned from the tug brought the old helmet aboard on Tuesday, the brass one that came up in the dredge net off Sharfleet with its face full of silt. Nobody wanted it, so it came to us. Inside, where a man's head should have been, there was a skull grinning at the cabin lamp as if it had been waiting years for someone to ask. Mrs Varley on the wharf crossed herself, then asked to see it again. I scrubbed the glass with vinegar until the skull looked back clean and white, and I set it on the galley shelf between the tea caddy and the tin of Bovril.

I painted Saturn on the hatch board last night, the ringed one from the back of Dad's almanac. Three coats of white for the ring and a black dot for every star, because the lamp goes out early and I wanted something to look at from the bunk. Half past two, I lay there counting dots and thought of you in that rented room, watching the same sky through a sash window that rattles.

Come home on the spring tide. The helmet will still be on the shelf, the kettle will be on, and there is a star by the hatch with your name written under it in pencil, small enough that nobody else would notice.

Love, Nell