‘Yup.’ She imagined him hitting the water with a tremendous splash, his turquoise shirt soaked, his dark hair plastered to his skull, his outraged face glaring at her, goggle-eyed.

‘Tough for you. Did you know her?’

What gave him the right to ask such questions?

‘A bit,’ she forced out through clenched teeth.

He put his mouth against her burning hair. ‘Irene?’ he said.

‘Yes?’ she said politely, as if they were in a business meeting, still staring down at the slowly rising boat. ‘Yes, Mickey?’

He took her chin in his hand, turned her face towards him and stared into it. Now, she thought. One shove; a punch hard in his solar plexus and he’d topple like a falling tree.

She stepped neatly out of the circle of his arms. ‘They’ve nearly reached the top now. And our boat should be here any minute. We should be ready to help.’

‘It’s holiday,’ he said. ‘Just a few days before we go back to our ordinary lives.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, grimacing at the predictability of it all. ‘It’s not the right time for me, Mickey.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. I’m sorry. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s me. I’m not ready for anything.’

‘I’m not giving up that easily.’

Lorrie steered, Mickey sat at the bows of the boat, staring ahead, and Luke sat on the deck with his binoculars and his notebook. He stared through the lenses, then jotted things down in the book with a dark blue cartridge pen. In the silence of late afternoon, Irene could hear the nib scratching on the coarse paper. Over the top of her book, she looked at his dextrous fingers, his concentrated frown. When he glanced up she quickly returned to Great Expectations, trying to fix an interested expression on her face. In the hour she’d been sitting here, she’d read two pages.

What was he thinking of? Mary? The gathering clouds ahead of them? The long-legged birds on the water’s edge? Her?

No, he wasn’t thinking of her. Why would he be? She hadn’t entered his radar. Mickey wanted her, kind of, and she, maybe, wanted Luke, and Luke wanted – well, she had no idea. He was a closed book. She stared down at the page, the blurring words.

‘It’s nearly six,’ said Neil, coming up through the hatchway. ‘We should stop soon.’

‘There’s a small town a couple of kilometres ahead,’ said Luke, screwing the top back on his pen, closing his book. ‘I thought that would be a good place. What do you reckon?’

‘The sooner the better for us,’ said Lorrie. ‘Katherine needs to eat and stretch her legs.’

‘She’s fine at the moment with her crayons.’

‘In the meantime,’ said Irene, standing up. ‘Why don’t I pour us all some cold white wine?’