Small heart tattoo on palm

The lock keeper at Hythe Bridge says the cut will be shut until Thursday, so we are tied up below the mill with a coal boat's dog for company. Dad has taken the tiller apart again. I told him the engine knows what it wants and he should let it be, but he never listens to anyone but the wind.

You asked in your last letter whether I ever went through with it, the little ink you thought I'd lost my nerve over. I did, in the back room of a barber's in Stourport, the man working between customers while the cricket murmured on his wireless. It hurt less than the splinter I got hauling rope. I told him I wanted something small that nobody would ask about, so he drew a heart the size of a lentil, right where the rope burns used to sit.

Here is the odd part. Every time I grip a paddle on a sticking gate, I feel it press against the wood, and I think of you on the towpath in March, shouting that I'd drown in the Severn before I learned to swim. I haven't drowned yet. Last night a moorhen walked across the foredeck as if it paid the mooring fee, and I laughed so hard I had to sit down on the hatch.

The milkman is taking this to the post in Worcester, so keep the kettle on for me in October. Dad says we'll be at Gloucester by the first frost if the water holds.

Your sister, Pen

P.S. Mind the third lock. The bottom gate weeps. And yes, the heart is still there when I wash my hands.