Edie squints. Follows the line of Tam’s arm. Then she nods. ‘I see them.’

‘They’re the Brisons. People race to them.’

‘In boats?’

‘Swimming.’

‘But it’s so far.’

‘My dad swam it once.’

Jago doesn’t correct her. He doesn’t say, You mean our dad. You might have been his favourite, but he belongs to me too.

‘Have either of you?’

Edie looks at them both. He doesn’t say anything, but Tamsyn shakes her head, says no, she doesn’t really swim in the sea.

Not anymore.

He watches Edie’s face move from confusion to comprehension as she remembers how their father died.

‘You know that boy?’ Tamsyn says then. ‘He was in the paper.’

‘Which boy?’

‘The one that nearly drowned.’

‘Why’s he in the paper?’

Tamsyn looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, it’s not really news is it? Boy Goes In the Sea and Doesn’t Die.’ Edie smiles but Tamsyn doesn’t. Instead she separates herself from Edie, and walks over to the sea wall, leans on it and stares out at the sea, or perhaps at the seabirds which fall like rocks from the sky in search of fish.

He looks out over the water too. It is a greenish-grey today. The Cornish word for the colour of the sea is glas. Glas can be green or blue or grey, or any shade between, whatever colour describes it at that moment. A fisherman’s joke. So today the sea is glas and touched with tufts of white.

He’s about to join his sister when he hears her voice.

‘Jay?’

He turns to find her standing beside him. The wind has hold of her hair and blows it over one eye. She smooths it back from her face and he notices the black polish on her bitten nails is chipped.

‘Can I borrow your lighter?’

He reaches into his jacket for his Zippo.

She takes it and for a fraction of a second their fingers touch. ‘Did you know the US Army issued these to their troops?’ she says. ‘Because they’re completely windproof and stay alight in any weather.’

He nods. He knows this. Everybody knows this.

They lean against an outcrop of rock and he rolls a cigarette. Edie lights her Camel Light. He puts the cigarette between his lips and takes the lighter from her. Lights up. Knocks the Zippo shut against his wrist. It clicks loudly and he slips it back into his pocket.