He was looking at the little wooden sign at the base of the closest dinghy’s frame, the sign Ned had seen and tried to ignore. The number—like the numbers on all the other signs like it—was higher than he’d expected. Far higher than anything he could afford, even if he doubled his output, if he purged every rabbit from the valley.

‘No, sir.’

Jackbird’s father patted his shoulder. ‘Worth looking, I suppose. Although I’m sure you didn’t have a new boat in mind.’

Ned nodded, even though it wasn’t true. He’d not had any particular boat in mind—just built, second-hand, falling apart. None. He hadn’t let his ambitions coalesce into a strategy. He’d just planned on making money, and assumed a boat would follow, as greenness follows rain. Here in the yard, in the company of grand craft and impossible numbers, he felt foolish. A greedy dreamer.

Jackbird kept mooning around the yachts. His father looked at Ned again. Read the trouble in his face. ‘Good thing I know a bloke.’

~

On the way home they took a left, barrelling south down a narrow road. Through a grove of tall blue gums, past stony paddocks. A small cliff rose before them, gashes of yellow and white in the rock of its face.

Jackbird’s father turned into a barely discernible driveway and drove across dirt until they reached a small house and a set of sheds. Beside the last building sat four dinghies. Ned looked away from them. Looked at anything else: wilted grass, sandy rock, the ochred tin roofs of the sheds.

After pulling up, Ned and Jackbird lingered by the truck, not wanting to spread out over whoever’s land it was, as Jackbird’s father knocked at the door. It opened. Words were passed. An old man came out, or perhaps he wasn’t old: a man greyed and beaten, in patched trousers and dusty boots. His eyes were pinched. The creases in his face were deep, but the skin around them did not sag. He could’ve been forty-five or seventy. He took the boys in without interest. Jackbird’s father beckoned them.

‘Lads, this is Mr Falmouth.’ He indicated each of the boys. ‘This is my son, Jack, and this is William West’s youngest, Ned.’

Falmouth kept looking at them. Stiff hair matted his scalp and fuzzed over his chin. Ned wondered if something within the man was broken or jarred. He was a loose sketch—unfinished, or in parts smudged out.

Jackbird’s father continued. ‘Ned here is in the market for a piece of watercraft. Nothing fancy. Thought he might be able to take one off your hands. Isn’t that right, Ned?’

Ned felt Falmouth’s eyes settle on him. Wanted to shrug, wanted to say no, or maybe, or that he wasn’t sure.

‘Yes, Mr Falmouth.’