Small dolphin tattoo on a finger

The kettle has boiled twice and gone cold again while I sit here with the pen, so forgive the blots. Mr Hollis has taken the early ferry across to the island with the tin chapel, and I have the whole kitchen to myself for once. He has been with us since Whitsun and has not once complained about the damp in room four, which is more than I can say for the Pargeters.

On Tuesday the dolphins came in past the harbour wall, six or seven of them, and the whole front row of the terrace was out at the railings shrieking like girls. Hollis did not come out. He sat at the window table with a stub of indelible pencil and drew one on the back of the breakfast card, a single leaping shape, black as a full stop, and pressed so hard the paper tore. I asked him what he meant by it. He said he had waited forty years to see one clear the water, and the only one he had ever seen was from the rail of a troopship, and it had not looked back at him.

Yesterday I found he had taken the card down from the sink, where he had pinned it, and left it on the draining board with the pin beside it. I understood then that he had been asking me something, and I did not know what, and I was short with him about the eggs. This morning the ferry was already gone when I came down, and the card was propped against the teapot with a bus ticket tucked under it for the return.

I have put the card on the windowsill, pinned to the glass. The sun comes through the little dolphin and throws its shadow across the oilcloth, black and quick, as if it is still going somewhere. If the pod comes back on Thursday I shall stand at the railings with the others and not hurry in.

Your sister, June