The young man and the girl had chartered the boat to get to the island. The boatman sitting in the stern looked at them, framed by sea spray, through squinting eyes. The man wore a hat and sunglasses.

Soft like hell, the boatman thought. And the girl - she look like a teenager.

But then, why judge? Their job was hard enough. The girl hug up that jar tight, tight, and wouldn't put it down. Urn was what she call it over the telephone. She and her brother wanted to go with a 'urn' out to the island to let go their mother's ashes. Would he take them? Well, you see strange things in this life. So why not?

As they rounded the promontory, the young man raised his binoculars to look at the cove. He scanned the ruins, sea-blasted and lonely. He lifted his voice above the slapping waves and the snarl of the engine.

'This is it? They used to come here for holidays? It must have been nice then. With her brother and sisters there, too.'

'Mommy always wanted to come back here.'

The boatman examined their faces. Above the din he said: 'Who was your mother?'

Anju and Ved looked at him. At that moment, a gust lifted Ved's hat and sent it into the sea. 'Rafiah. Her father's name was Ogeerally,' he told the boatman.

'I know. I remember your mother.' The boatman smiled briefly, and looked away. After a minute he spoke again. 'My father was caretaker at the house. He used to bring them across. Every August for six years. Until the accident.'

He steered the boat towards an old wooden jetty. 'My father used to say your grandmother was the prettiest lady he ever see. He say Ogeerally was a crazy man. Like plenty woman. Love to gamble. Your grandmother cook, he out with friends. When he reach home, food cold. Man, he throw it out the window and say cook fresh food, oui!'

The boatman looked at them speculatively, as if wanting to say more. Then he said: 'Your grandfather used to keep a gun. One day your mother find that gun. Eight years old. She play with it like is a toy.' Again he paused. Ved and Anju looked steadily at him.

'That day Ogee come in drunk drunk. Cursing. The older children on the beach, but me and my father fixing pipe in the kitchen. Food wasn't ready, and that man pick up a knife and throw it at your grandmother. He miss, but same time we hear the gun and see Ogee fall down dead.'

'Mommy ...? Ved asked.

'Police say he shoot heself, and they close the case.'

'She never told us. I didn't know.'

'God, she had to live with that all her life?' Anju drew the urn to her chest. 'Did she even understand what had happened?'

The boatman throttled down and pulled close to the jetty. As the young people climbed out, he pointed to a structure built on the seafront, where the headland met the bay. Ved removed his sunglasses, lifted the binoculars, and saw the crumbling walls of the roofless house.

They walked along the stony shore to its front, and stood silently there.

Anju was the first to move out to the rocks, around which the water lapped. She squatted and held out the sealed urn. Ved went down next to her and tapped it with a stone, carefully first, then harder. Suddenly there was a puff of fine black dust coming up from the urn, up and over them. Still Ved determinedly hit at it, and finally the urn cracked open.

Its clay shards fell away, and the ashes merged with the air they breathed and sank to the water. They drifted seaward along the line of light cast by the evening sun.

Soon hundreds of white, long-tailed seabirds came around the headland, swooping, gliding and soaring over the bay.

- Carolyn Seereeram-Harnanan