Slip a pearl into his pocket, draw a swallow on his foot, hide his boots, fill his bath water with salt, add black pepper to his food, grind peony root and add it to the wash, wrap strands of his hair around oak branches, buy him shirts of sky blue; it won't matter; if she wants him there's no stopping her, you can't argue with the sea...

Always use new pins, old letters and borrow blue from the sky...

As the storms rolled in that spring the apple blossomed early, its fresh scent rose in waves drawing schools of rosy salmon into the shallows, and when they were cut open their bellies were full of bones and buckles, pearls and rings, and lost souls that settled right on the sea green slabs of the harbour. They clung to the salt and seaweed on the men’s boots and travelled home with them, settling in on the garden paths and in the branches of those apple trees...

That May the air turned hazy, and as the boats set out the forget-me-not wove itself through the grass; little pieces of the shy fallen to earth, a sure sign of a love to be lost…

All through that summer it rained, deep green, salty rain which fell in sheets so suddenly and so heavy the world became blurred... and so the lost settled in, roosting in the blue china and between the sheets...

Every evening, as the waves lapped in, stray apples would wash up on the beach and the horizon would tilt a little more off balance...

The Summer blew out in a gust from the North; it swept through the house slamming doors and rattling the china, it tore those sheets from the line and scattered the flowers. By the time the leaves turned on the trees the fire had turned blue, there was salt in the tea and nothing could be done…

That Autumn the trees were laden with fruit, each one bitter and hollow, the cakes made from them needed ladles of sugar, and still they caused dreams so deep and murky that even the bravest feared drowning...

By winter there were water marks on the walls and blue light filtering through every room, and each wavering breath she took was as salty as tears...

That North wind tugged at her hair, it pulled at her clothes and unwound the blue in her hem...

All through that winter the house smelt of apples and ice. And in the Spring when the frost thawed, he was gone. His boots filled with salt water and no blossoms on the trees...