Downstream

summers, they went out
together on the river where
she remembers lots of
freshwater mussels. As a
child Demelza was sent for
history lessons at people’s
houses where ‘old river
people would tell me which
patches were stony, which
patches were muddy, it was
part of growing up. I get
homesick now if I smell
freshwater.’ She says
swimming in the Thames is