DEDICATION

      For my mother, Irene Stella Bevan

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

Dedication

       Epigraph

1 the armada

Cinders

The Armada

The Betrayal

The Eavesdropper

Echoes

Neighbourhood Watch

Inattention

Juggling in the Crematorium

       Stepfather

       The Nightlight

       An Incident

       Ward Sixteen

       Ebb Tide and the Sparrow

       The Khardoma

       In the Dark

       Ghost Ship

       Five Down

       2 between harbours

       These Boys Have Never Really Grown into Men

       The Word

       Don’t Ask

       Survivor

       Her Coldness Explained

       What I Need for the Present

       The Sick Equation

       The Recognition

       Dear Thief

       An Obsession

       The Wife

       Hooks

       April Morning Walk

       Act Two

       Waiting

       Our Lives Had Grown so Empty

       3 inessential things

       Inessential Things

       Minister for Exams

       Tina’s Flight

       Devilment

       Why Things Remained the Same

       Poetry Lesson

       Waiting in Macedonia

       Khartoum

       Lockerbie

       So Many Different Lengths of Time

       Drinking to the Muse

       Circus Act

       The Mirror’s Apprentice

       Garden Lore

       In Perspective

       Full Circle World

       Into the Blue

       Sea Saw

       The Brackets

       Keep Reading

       Acknowledgements