I crossed our home paddock, past the macrocarpas planted to give us firewood someday. I half-slid down the bank, then sloshed my way across the Waimoana, using the axe to hold me steady against the current. The water was only up to my thighs; it’s been a dry summer. Trout were brought from Scotland and released into our rivers years ago; Father and Uncle Niall and I enjoy catching them. They’d mostly be in the cool, deep pools just now.

Our river isn’t always easy to cross. Just two years ago, Father and I had to ford it after heavy rain. He wanted to visit his and Uncle Niall’s friend Haare, who lives in the pa on the other side. Haare was ill; he gets sick a lot in winter, and Father was determined to see him.

He didn’t tell Mother we were going; she’d have tried to stop him. But when we reached the new paddock he’d cleared beside the river, he said, ‘Come with me, Duncan, lad. We can manage this.’ So we climbed down to where the Waimoana was wider and didn’t seem so deep. Father carried a long stick. ‘We’ll hold this, Duncan. Four legs will stand against the current better than two. We could do with one of your uncle’s horses.’

Uncle Niall is a wonderful rider. There’s a story I used to make Mother or Father tell me over and over about his first horse, big black Chieftain, and what happened when my uncle set off to fight in the South African war.

On the morning I’m talking about, Father and I waded into the current. The water surged around us, knee-deep, then hip-deep, then waist-deep. The river ran brown and noisy; we couldn’t see its bed, but I heard rocks rumbling along it. The stick held us steady; one of us stood still while the other took a step, and we laboured forward.

We were over halfway to the far side. Father reached a foot forward, staggered, then plunged down. He’d stepped into a hole in the riverbed.

His hand slipped from the stick. I saw the water begin to tear him away. My free hand shot forward, I grasped his collar and hung on with all my strength. My other hand rammed the stick into the bed of the river, bracing us. Father hauled himself upright, grunting and spluttering. He seized his end of the stick once more, and we waded on.

Neither of us spoke until we reached the far bank and crouched panting on the ground, dragging breath back into our bodies. Then Father placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ll be a fine, strong man, Duncan.’ That was all he said, but it warmed me then, and it still warms me now when I think about it. And it makes me sad that there is this difference between us.