This is a precisely told, evocative story of life on a remote Welsh island in 1938. Life here is distant from the mainland, where the threat of war is growing. Here time is measured through subtle changes of light, the fisherman's catch and the gradual decay of a beached whale. Manod's internal conflict between island responsibilities and mainland opportunities is exemplified when two alluring English anthropologists come to study the island.
For a while we mourned the whale's body, its early signs of rot. Someone brought flowers, placed their coat over its back. The coat looked comically small, like a doll's apron. The smell worsened, stung our eyes. A dark cloud of gulls hovered over the beach. When they came towards the houses, they were potbellied and smug shrieking like children. At night the sound of puffins, migrating late, out from their burrows in the hill. Llinos saw one in the window one night, its body almost white against the bushes. The whale was left pockmarked, and two of its ribs began to emerge.
