He takes his shoes and pants off, tucks them under his arm, climbs out of the boat, then wades in through the thigh-deep water, slipping and sliding a little when he reaches the slick rocks that frame the shore.

‘Would’ve been up to me armpits,’ his mother mutters while he towels his legs with his pants. ‘You didn’t even get your undies wet.’

Lucy, still looking away, snorts.

Harry feels a blush heat his cheeks. He tugs his pants on. ‘Jesus, Mum. Bit of privacy too much to ask for?’ he grumbles.

Flo had watched as Harry handled the boat and anchor with sure, steady movements. Everything he does is so deliberate, she thinks. The way he set the pot, the way he showed Lucy how to set the net, instructing her in low, encouraging tones. Gentle, considerate. It makes her think what a wonderful father he’ll be if he ever gets his act together. Everything he does is measured and thought through; he never overshoots.

They walk, rock-hopping along the shore. They’re heading towards the headland that’s matted here and bristly there, with warring native grasses. Harry and Lucy are trailing after her and she’s aware of their patience in the face of her slow pace: their patience at the way she pauses to find even footing, at the way she uses her hands to crab down awkward sections—sections which, when you’re young, you use your momentum to skip through. Confidence when rock-hopping is one of the first things you lose. She feels like she should warn them, tell them to make the most of it while they still can. But she’s a little out of breath and she suspects that they won’t care; you never do until it’s gone. And now she’s climbed herself into a bind—the gap between the rock she’s perched on and the next is beyond her so she has to turn back and wobble her way through the jagged rocks outcropping the larger ones that defeated her. Meanwhile, Harry and Lucy leap from large rock to large rock, easy as you like, pulling well ahead of her. She watches as Harry dips his head towards Lucy in that way tall people do when they’re listening to short people speak. Watches them both chuckle. Then Lucy says something else to Harry and they both turn to face her.

They’re waiting by a gap in the scrub, she realises, a makeshift path up onto the headland, and she feels the lost opportunity hard. She should’ve been showing them where it was.

‘Carn, Mum,’ Harry calls, and she hurries to catch up to them, nearly going A-over-T in the process. Again, she feels aware of the age difference, as if it’s a palpable space. It is a palpable space: it’s the air that she’s flapping her arms in as she tries to maintain her balance while she hurries towards them. And then Harry is giving her a shove up onto the headland. He clambers up himself and offers a hand to Lucy.