About this story
Your years run through Manchester print shops, a Paris atelier and a marriage that thins, until a glass case hands you the little boat named Cecily, your mother's name burned in with a wire. Fifty-four chapters carry you from Jenny Crum's pool to a last fleet sailed on the same black water.
How it opens
An April wind swept the farmyard while your aunt held out the battered hat Louie had forgotten.
You were David Grieve, a moorland boy responsible for driving the sheep without losing any to the high ground.
Hannah GrieveTie those strings, David; your sister would mislay her head if nature had not fastened it.
Fetch it yourself, David; Aunt Hannah always expects you to answer for both of us.
Hannah GrieveMind that broken gate, or the sheep will reach the high moor before either dog turns them.
Choose
Tie the hat on her yourself and send both dogs around the straying ewes.
Give her the hat loose and make her responsible for whatever happens to it.