‘Definitely. Take it all up on deck and I’ll get changed.’

‘Where’s Mickey?’ asked Irene as Lorrie opened the door to her cabin, offering a glimpse of Neil, naked and pink shouldered.

‘Having a fag on the towpath. You look nice, said Luke.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes. Lovely.’

‘Thank you.’

He lifted a hand to touch her. Katherine barged out of the cabin and took Irene’s skirt, tugging it.

‘Read me my book now.’

‘Just once. Then we’re all going to have a drink on deck before supper. Aren’t you tired?’

‘Read me the story about the duck.’

‘OK.’

‘Do the different voices, like before.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘I’ll get the drinks then.’

She felt drunk before she took a sip, bubbles prickling in her nostrils. They sat on the deck in the golden evening light, a baked landscape on either side of them, rosy clouds on the horizon, the smell of thyme in the air. Store this away, lay it up for winter days.

‘A week ago, we didn’t know each other,’ said Irene.

‘Juliet’s half-sister-in-law. That’s what we called you.’

‘Did you? I was partly dreading you arriving.’

‘Why? You don’t seem like someone who’s easily intimidated.’ Mickey was drinking more quickly than the others, gulping the sparkling wine as if he was quenching his thirst.

‘I don’t know. You were this big group and I was just me, I suppose. And I’m not used to that – being just me, I mean. Whatever being me means.’ Why was she talking like this? She took another small sip; light bounced off the water and the world tipped and wavered. ‘I’ve been part of a group for so long – a pair, Irene-and-Adrian or Adrian-and-Irene, a family group – and suddenly I was trailing around on my own. You don’t know until you’re without it how used you get to someone else speaking for you, finishing your sentences, filling in silences.’

‘I don’t like people doing that to me,’ said Lorrie, not looking at Neil and speaking in a deliberately neutral tone. ‘It makes me feel I’ve lost my identity.’

‘I know. You don’t like it until you don’t have it, and then you miss it. Or at least, you feel cast off and adrift somehow.’ She turned to Mickey. ‘Do people match-make for you?’

‘People not too far from where I’m sitting now have been known to, not to mention any names, Lorrie.’

‘I do not!’

‘Ha! What about that woman with that strange hairstyle last month?’

‘I thought you two … Don’t eat too many of those, Kath, you won’t want your supper.’

‘I don’t want supper.’ She picked up a handful of crisps and stuffed them into her mouth, glared round the group with bulging cheeks.