‘Bit distracted by getting hit by the car?’ Harry asks. He pushes them away from the ledge. The water chopped up by the boat makes a plonking sound and, for a brief moment, Harry’s a boy again, watching his father’s Adam’s apple plunge up and down in his throat as he skols a big glass of water.

‘Yeah, something like that.’ Lucy smiles and flicks her eyes in his direction. Her gaze meets his and there’s something in it that feels so intense it sends a murmur of euphoria fluttering through his body. But despite this, he finds he can’t hold it. He looks away from her, looks at the motor, which is splattered with squid ink—how had he missed that when he was flushing it the other day? He’s usually so thorough. He grasps the pull-cord, yanks it once, twice, and the engine burbles to life. He tries not to think about the touch of her arm, slipping around his waist.

Harry remains standing, with his hand on the tiller, as they motor back towards the net and the elation that bubbled through his chest quickly gives way to that familiar anticipation as he pulls up by the line of buoys.

‘All right, Lucy, you want to pull it?’ he asks.

‘I would, but I reckon I’d flash you.’ She gestures to her bare legs and shoots him a grin as she says this. What does it mean?

‘Righto. I’ll pull it then. But one of you is gonna have to drive.’

‘You go, Lucy,’ Flo says. ‘My boating days are over. I’m happy reclining like a lady o’leisure.’

‘Onya, Flo.’ Lucy chuckles as she takes the tiller.

‘Face the boat towards the shore, so we’re coming at the net side-on,’ Harry tells her. ‘Yep, that’s it. Just go slowly, and ease off when I say so.’

He leans over, hooks the first buoy with his forefinger and begins to haul the net up over the side of the boat, one hand after the other, taking care to keep twists out of it as he guides it into the bin in even folds. He’s barely started pulling it when he spies the first glimmer of silver.

‘There’s colour! Just back off a moment, Luce’—Luce? Since when did he call her Luce?—‘it’s a snotty. Oh! And there’s more. Shit yeah! I reckon we’ve hit a school! Mum, you want to do the honours?’

He disentangles the gasping fish from the net and holds it out to his mother.

‘Oh well. There goes leisure,’ she grumbles. ‘Give it here.’ She takes the trevally from him, rips out its throat with her thumb and forefinger, bends its head back to break its neck, then throws it into the bucket. She’s a fisherman’s wife through and through, his mum is. By the time she’s done, Harry’s got another fish ready for her, then another, then another, then another. His fingers become cold and stiff as they work against the weight of the rope and the slick bodies.