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smell of petrol and clanking of chains on the car deck immediately took her back to her childhood: nausea mixed with the excitement of the coming holiday, her father hurrying them up the stairs towards the lounges, the rush to get four seats in a row, she and Nola waiting for the duty-free shop to open so that they could try all the perfumes before sea sickness made the smells repugnant and they returned to cuddle into their parents for the rest of the journey. The memories filled Phoebe with sadness; if they had known then how little time they would have together, would she have hugged them harder, held them for longer? If she had known what would happen to David would she have forced him to leave Sandra, to spend every waking hour with her? Tears threatened and she blinked them back.
    The boat began to move and Phoebe went outside despite the biting cold. Leaning against the rail, she watched the Welsh coast slip into the gloom and wished she hadn’t left her coat in the car.
    Shivering, she looked down at the steely sea and wondered if Nola had even realised she had gone. Two days and there had been no message from her, no attempt to get in touch. But despite her sister’s silence every gust of salty wind seemed full of Nola’s condemnation, whipping around her as she stood on the deck.
    Phoebe closed her eyes and tried to let thoughts of David fill her mind instead.
    ‘Are you not frozen?’ The voice made Phoebe jump, her eyes sprung open. She saw an old man standing no more than a foot away; his lined face looked concerned. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he had an Irish accent. He took a packet of cigarettes from the pocket his coat and offered her one.
    Phoebe shook her head.
    ‘Sensible girl.’ He smiled and cupped his hands around the cigarette as he lit it. Phoebe wished he would go away.
    ‘Holiday or business or going home?’ The man blew out a long stream of smoke that was instantly whisked away by the wind.
    Phoebe didn’t feel much like talking; in fact she wasn’t sure if she’d spoken to anyone since Nola left her flat. She shrugged and looked back down into the water.
    A few minutes passed. Phoebe could still feel him looking at her.
    ‘If there’s one thing my many years on this earth has taught me,’ the old man finally said, ‘it’s that nothing’s ever as bad as it seems.’ Then he moved away to talk to someone else.
    Phoebe tried to rekindle her thoughts of David but the man had interrupted her memories and made her feel annoyed. She looked up at the seagulls wheeling overhead. If only she could escape into the air and fly away from mundane conversations with strangers, fly away from the unbearable banality of life. That was what she would do in Carraigmore, find the solitude and isolation she longed for. She would walk; lots of long walks on the beach and on the headland, she would read Jane Eyre , and she would draw. She would draw every day.
    She closed her eyes again and thought of the first time David had made love to her six months before. He’d asked her to stay after school to talk about a difficult pupil in her class. Afterwards heʼd insisted that she shouldn’t wait for the bus in the rain, insisted on giving her a lift even though he lived on the other side of town; outside her flat she’d been just about to get out of the car when he’d kissed her, melting her resolve to ignore the way sheʼd felt about him for almost half her life. Later he had picked up the sketchbook beside her bed and flicked through it.
    ‘You’re very good.’
    ‘These days it’s just doodling.’ Phoebe pulled the sheet around her shoulders, suddenly feeling exposed. ‘I haven’t done much real drawing since I finished college.
    David examined a pen-and-ink study of a vase of tulips; he traced it with his fingers and Phoebe tried not to notice the wedding ring that glinted in the light cast by the bedside lamp. ‘This is beautiful,’ he said. He looked at her and she found herself