Walking alone, Roaring Forties buffeting our island, my haphazard heart cast away, I see Matthew’s sloop split the strait. I pick up a fragile paper nautilus, broken, as most of those washed up are, watch his sails billow my way, gulls’ cries, landfall’s geology, at least, familiar to both of us.

Waves lapping this coast in languid rhythm, I describe wonders taking place during two hectic, insane centuries, regretting my dearth of knowledge, articulate about great books, but awkward, stumbling into slang over the internal combustion engine, its delights, drawbacks and now, global precarity. Electronic finance, the internet and the camera that is now a mobile phone, also expose my ignorance of basal principles.