Before them, rinsed by rain and approaching steadily, was the land. They stood on deck watching their ship slice through the muscle of water, bringing them inexorably toward their new life. In all, it had taken twenty-one days and seven thousand watery miles. The morning unfolded starkly, white as a shroud. What little could be seen through the fast-moving mist was bleak and devoid of trees. England huddled in darkness; ancient cliffs secretive and uninviting; settlers’ land. Small pockets of fear exploded within them even as they watched. Everything they had seen—the Red Sea at dawn, memories of the Mediterranean—in one single blow was reduced to a crumpled blur in the face of this new reality. Alice, standing mesmerised beside the wrapped figure of Sita, heard her grandfather’s voice very clearly in the cold morning air. ‘This is your first home, Putha,’ he had said, on that last day, ‘you were born here.’ There had been a warning in his voice and she had ignored it. He had had the strangest look on his face.
