But at the centre of it all are Evered and Ada, sealed in their companionship, making their new life alone. The HMS Medusa anchors offshore, bringing the raucous company of sailors. They find a shipwreck, but what looks at first like bounty turns out to be something else entirely. The world intrudes intermittently: the reader is in the same position as this lonely pair, waiting to see what it will bring. With their parents gone, half-asleep in their bed in the tilt, they rock against each other for comfort and gratification. As the craft vibrated, she sensed “the quiver until she felt an answering quiver pass through her like an echo coming off a cliff face”. With compelling eroticism, Mr Crummey depicts them awakening to their physical selves Ada first learned of pleasure when, at nine, she pressed herself against the keel of the boat that Evered and their father were preparing for the season, by raking oakum from its seams. As Evered and Ada huddle for warmth in winter, their closeness evolves into something else.
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