: To Tom

Tom, The generator's eating injectors again. Third set this year. I'm machining brass stock on the lathe because the supply boat hasn't come since March and I'll be damned if I let a fifty-quid part stop the whole show. Jenny says I'm stubborn. She's right. Weather's been proper foul. Three gales back to back. The shortwave picks up French trawlers arguing about quotas and some Russian vessel singing shanties at 0300. I listen. It's the only voices besides hers. Day 584. I've stopped counting properly. The calendar on the workshop wall says November but the ink's faded. I think about the boatyard. Your laugh. The way you'd throw a spanner at the bulkhead when the Yanmar wouldn't fire. I was a prick. Said things I didn't mean about the business, about Dad's tools, about you not knowing the sea. You knew it better than me in ways that mattered. Jenny wants me to say she sends her regards. She's asleep in the chair by the stove. The cat's on her feet. She's the best thing I never deserved. I'm sorry. For all of it. If you get this — burn it, bin it, whatever. Just know I'm still here. Still fixing things. Kev