Tribal face and pattern calf tattoo

Your letter came on Tuesday with the Penzance post, and I have read it so often the corners have gone soft. Dad has finally finished the carving for the Marion's bow. He worked on it all through the wet weather, sitting in the shed with the lamp lit at four in the afternoon, and last night he carried it down to the quay in a sack so nobody would see until it was fixed.

It is a face, Tom, a broad one with heavy brows cut in like two black gulls, and the eyes shut, as if it is only resting. Under the chin he has carved a grin with a row of square teeth. Round the head runs a ring of points like the rays a child draws for the sun. Below that, bands of triangles climb the wood like the teeth of a saw, and there are spirals that curl in on themselves and then out again, the way the tide turns round the breakwater. He would not say where he learned the pattern. He said it came to him in the night, which is what he says about everything he will not explain.

Mrs Penhallow came down to look and said it would frighten the gulls off the nets. Dad said good, that was what it was for. The lads from the Ellis boat won't go near it after dark.

I keep thinking about the shut eyes. Dad says it isn't sleeping, it is keeping watch with its eyes closed, which is the only way anyone can see the sea properly. So when you come home in the autumn, look for it first. It will know you before anyone else does.

Your loving sister, Ada