The number 17 bus to Penzance took us through Lelant and its stone houses on either side of the narrow, curving street. Further out, the cows were brown or black-and-white in fields green and greener beyond.



From Penzance, a large and built-up town with dusty chicken and kebab shops by the bus station, we walked east along the coast to Marazion, fixing our sights on St Michael’s Mount. Saints and conquerors have made their way to the island since the Middle Ages; in 1846 Queen Victoria popped in to the castle for tea. The five-kilometre path took us by the train tracks, by the whirring of a helicopter preparing for take-off, by a curious rundown shack with three model mermaids on its roof. They were two redheads and a brunette, and their tails were made of green plastic netting.



At Mount’s Bay we walked on the beach, slipping on pebbles and sinking our heels into the sand. The sun was behind us, strong over our shoulders, and I took my coat off. The wind carried the scent of the salty sea.

Low tide had uncovered the stone path we crossed, like so many medieval pilgrims, to St Michael’s Mount. The clouds had begun to gather, by then, and I felt a raindrop, and then another, on my cheek. We took shelter in the small restaurant with the view of the sea on one side and the umbrella trees and pines on the other. The waitress brought us sandwiches of Newlyn crab from just down the coast, and a pot of tea to warm our hands on.

The water had come in by the time we left, and the path laid into the seabed was only a shadow of a suggestion beneath the waves. A wrinkly man in a small boat waited in the port to take us back to land.

We left Marazion as the sun set, as the swans appeared in the bay like children under an ancient curse. They dunked and bobbed their heads so I couldn’t be sure, but I counted thirteen of them, because of course thirteen is the number in such tales.