the strength without the arrogance, and her mouth was far softer. All this flashed into his mind, wife the realization that she must be Beth, his sister. She would find him inexplicable, and probably be hurt, if he did not know her.
"Beth." He held out his hands.
Her face broke into a broad smile of delight.
"William! I hardly knew you, you've changed so much!
We got your letter-you said an accident-are you hurt badly? We didn't expect you so soon-" She blushed. "Not that you aren't very welcome, of course." Her accent was broad Northumberland, and he found it surprisingly pleasing to the ear. Was that familiarity again, or only the music of it after London?
"William?" She was staring at him. "Come inside- you must be tired out, and hungry." She made as if to pull him physically into the house.
He followed her, smiling in a sudden relief. She knew him; apparently she held no grudge for his long absence or the letters he had not written. There was a naturalness about her that made long explanations unnecessary. And he realized he was indeed hungry.
The kitchen was small but scrubbed clean; in fact the table was almost white. It woke no chord of memory in him at all. There were warm smells of bread and baked fish and salt wind from the sea. For the first time since waking in the hospital, he found himself beginning to relax, to ease the knots out.
Gradually, over bread and soup, he told her the facts he knew of the accident, inventing details where the story was so bare as to seem evasive. She listened while she continued to stir her cooking on the stove, warm the flat-iron and then began on a series of small children's clothes and a man's Sunday white shirt. If it was strange to her, or less than credible, she gave no outward sign. Perhaps the whole world of London was beyond her knowledge anyway, and inhabited by people who lived incomprehensible lives which could not be hoped to make sense to ordinary people.
It was the late summer dusk when her husband came in, a broad, fair man with wind-scoured face and mild features. His gray eyes still seemed tuned to the sea. He greeted Monk with friendly surprise, but no sense of dismay or of having been disturbed in his feelings, or the peace of his home.
No one asked Monk for explanations, even the three shy children returned from chores and play, and since he had none to give, the matter was passed over. It was a strange mark of the distance between them, which he observed with a wry pain, that apparently he had never shared enough of himself with his only family that they noticed the omission.
Day succeeded day, sometimes golden bright, sun hot when the wind was offshore and the sand soft under his feet. Other times it swung east off the North Sea and blew with sharp chill and the breath of storm. Monk walked along the beach, feeling it rip at him, beating his face, tearing at his hair, and the very size of it was at once frightening and comforting. It had nothing to do with people; it was impersonal, indiscriminate.
He had been there a week, and was feeling the strength of life come back to him, when the alarm was called. It was nearly midnight and the wind screaming around the stone corners of the houses when the shouts came and the hammering on the door.
Rob Bannerman was up within minutes, oilskins and seaboots on still almost in his sleep. Monk stood on the landing in bewilderment, confused; at first no explanation came to his mind as to the emergency. It was not until he saw Beth's face when she ran to the window, and he followed her and saw below them the dancing lanterns and the gleam of light on moving figures, oilskins shining in the rain, that he realized what it was. Instinctively he put his arm around Beth, and she moved fractionally closer to him, but her body was stiff. Under her breath she was praying, and there were tears in her voice.
Rob was already out of the house. He had spoken to neither of them, not even hesitated beyond touching Beth's hand as he passed her.
It was a wreck, some ship driven by the screaming winds onto the outstretched fingers of rock, with God knew how many souls clinging to the sundering planks, water already swirling around their waists.