An easterly is the most annoying of all the winds to sweep in across the brown waters of the North Sea. The city that is Kingstown awaits with baited dread and settles into a stoically practised response. They called it a European bite, a cold snap that was meant to punish those across the water. Anyone watching this scene, hopefully wrapped up against the unwanted drop in temperature, would have been able to discern a pair walking along the that which passed for a beach. Only the truly sharp of vision and keenest of curiousities would have noted an occasional touching hands, for the merest of moments. Thus was the start of the latter part of March 1867.
The curve of spit was so ingrained a feature of Kingston’s meeting with the waves that few thought to notice it. It was as much a part of the landscape as was the air, and just as obvious. The two figures, following the tideline, were less than usual. The spit, part nature’s forgetfulness and mankind’s attempt to control the world around him, separated the worst of the cold northwesterly tides from the calmer waters beyond. The spit was a rampart, a refusal by man and nature to surrender to the prevailing forces of the age. And the lovers, for that is what they were, or what they were destined to become, were fighting their own battle against the elements.
Which novel?
Read After Burnout 
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