Once he’d said it, Ned felt light-headed. His father was watching him with an unfathomable expression. Ned couldn’t tell if he was angry, astonished, happy or disgusted. His hat was shadowing his face, which made it even harder for Ned to read him.

His father picked up the wheelbarrow. ‘Come with me.’

He rolled forward over a faint path in the grass. Ned followed him. Kept holding on to his words, his explanations and excuses. He waited for his father to tell him that he’d thought Ned was raising money for the war, for hats like the ones his brothers had been issued, that they didn’t need a boat, that it would only cost them more money in upkeep, that didn’t Ned realise the position they were in, hadn’t he heard his father and Maggie talking in the evenings, that a boat was a luxury they didn’t need or deserve, that his thoughtlessness was only surpassed by his selfishness. But he said nothing. Ned decided this silence was part of his punishment. Or that his father couldn’t shape words around his disappointment.

Ned was watching his feet fall, his thoughts torn, on fire, when his father stopped. Ned nearly walked into him. They were near the water, in the crook of one of the river’s elbows. A small pebbly beach ran along the shore. At its back, near a stand of peeling paperbarks, had appeared a small shed.

Ned moved to its doorless entryway. Saw the old, reused planks that formed its walls and its rough raised floor. The uneven rafters, not yet sheathed in roof slats. Its existence shook the teeth in his gums. Shook the thoughts from his head.

His father came to his side. ‘We’ll need to finish the roofing, lay some runners on the beach.’

Ned turned. His voice was unsteady. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Since I spoke to Telle, the day after you took the horse down to her.’

Ned searched his mind until he remembered the name: Estelle. The vet. Jackbird’s father had said it once. Ned laid a hand on the shed’s wall. ‘How long have you been building it?’

‘Since around then.’

‘I was going to tell you.‘

‘And now you are.’

Ned saw how the inscrutability had fallen from his father’s face: saw the hint of a smile curling his mouth. The spark of pleasure in his creek-clear eyes.

‘You’re a funny fella. Nothing wrong with working towards a goal. One of the better things a man can do. Long as you earn what you’re after.’

‘I was doing it to help make hats as well.’ Ned heard the earnestness in his voice, the high strain of justification. ‘The pelts will make good hats. You said so yourself.’