Two facing cats in single line on thigh

The boat came in at half five, though not the one we'd been watching for. The Morwenna Rose limped past the breakwater with her starboard rail stove in and Dad at the tiller, cap crushed in one fist, and I stood on the wall with the cats winding round my ankles as if I'd called them there myself. Tamsin, the grey one, had her nose pressed to the ginger tom's, the way she does when the wind swings east. Mum says they're only smelling each other. I think they're deciding who has to go down to the slip first.

Nobody drowned. Tom Pascoe's boy went over the side after a float and came up swearing, which Mrs Pascoe says is the surest sign of a living child. The nets are a loss, though. You should see them heaped on the slipway, all loops and folds, thick as a wedding veil. Dad sat on an upturned crate picking knots with his bad hand until the light went. I brought him tea. He didn't say thank you, but he let the cats sit on his boots, which is his way of saying it.

I keep thinking how the sea draws a line and then rubs it out. The gulls walk the top of the wall the same way the cats do, never lifting a foot they don't need to. Tamsin got up at dusk and walked straight to the water's edge, tail high, and the tom followed her like a string pulled taut. They came back an hour later, soaked to the belly, and sat on the step as if nothing had happened.

Write soon, and tell Rob to stop letting that dog in the wheelhouse.

Love, Ada