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had gone. She had expected the house to be empty. She and Jack had only just left, she was sure. There hadn’t been time for others to come into her house. Her house. There was some mistake.
    The front door opened and a tall, thin man wearing a smart jersey and tiny spectacles looked at her.
    â€˜Can I help you?’ he asked.
    Pearl looked at the ground and shook her head. The thin man stayed watching her from the doorway. She felt his eyes on her back all the way down the street.
    She went to see Eileen but the shop was too busy. There were people queuing outside. That was good for Eileen, and her son David too. Another day would do for a visit.
    Her chest was tight but she didn’t want to wait for it to ease. She wanted to get away from Morlanow and the only place to go was back up the hill. She began to climb the cliff path. Herring gulls jeered overhead. She didn’t let herself look out to sea.
    There was a letter waiting for her when she got back. Perhaps this would say when they could return to Carew Street, and what that man was doing in her house. She didn’t pause to get a drink of water, just ripped open the envelope, her pulse loud in her ears.
    It was from Pascoe. Wave Crest was sliding towards the cliff edge, their house on the end worst of all. The men in overalls had found subsidence from the mine workings inside the cliff, from back when there was still tin to be prised from the rock. Miles and miles beneath the cliff the miners had gone, out below the sea. But Pascoe with his papers and plans hadn’t thought about the shafts, and neither had the railway company.
    In the letter Pascoe promised that the problems in the new houses would be put right, but what with the work on the palace hotel he couldn’t say when exactly. It was too late to move back to Carew Street. The visitors were there. She was stuck up the hill and she wouldn’t be able to keep Nicholas from her thoughts any longer.
    Her hand was shaking. She let the letter drop to the floor and then felt her legs give way. She slumped against the wall, dust and sand rough on her bare calves. Here he was, pushing through, his hand reaching for hers. He whispered her name in her ear. There was heat at her temples again but this time rushing, bringing a wave of darkness, then the white sail again. All whiteness as the sail wrapped itself round her and covered her face.

PA RT TWO
    1880 and 1936

One
    It’s so sunny that when she looks up from the water all she can see is white light. The sun is high overhead. It must be midday. She knows the time of day by the tide and the light rather than numbers, and she knows the season by the fishing. Everything follows a pattern and patterns must be learnt. School will end soon as pilchards are expected which means it must be summer. It is 1880 and hopes are high for another good season of fishing. The last few have been the best anyone can remember. The sea is full and their nets the same. When this year’s fish come, all hands will be needed in the palace, however small they may be. Until then she spends each afternoon on the seafront or on the beach, with Jack who is twelve and Nicholas who is fourteen.
    The three of them live on the same street, three houses all in a line and Pearl’s house in the middle. The three fathers go out in the lifeboat when the flare goes up, and everyone goes to chapel. Each family works together in pilchard season. The men go out in the same seine team to catch them; Pearl’s mother and Nicholas’s mother, Annie, bulk the fish in the palace, packing the hard shining fish in salt. Jack doesn’t have a mother but Pearl knows she’s not supposed to talk to him about it. If she does, his very blue eyes get bluer as he cries and he bites his thick bottom lip.
    The boys like to roam Morlanow and their games are much better than those of the girls she goes to school with. Pearl likes to climb things, and to pretend sometimes too.