‘Well I’ll be. Mitch Saunders. Look at you,’ he calls. ‘When’d you turn into such a straight’—and then he stops up short. He can’t finish the sentence. He was going to say when’d you turn into such a straight cunt, but he can’t say it in front of Lucy, let alone his mother, and he’s feeling so anxious, no other word comes to mind. Fuck fuck fuck.

But Mitch doesn’t seem to notice the way Harry’s tongue’s stumbled and is saying: ‘Harry Seaborne, ay? Heard you was back. When were you gonna give us a call?’

‘’s only been a few weeks,’ Harry mumbles, coming to a stop in front of Mitch, noticing, vaguely, the way his blue shirt has so obviously been ironed. ‘Just been settling back in, ay.’

Mitch grabs Harry’s hand—the same one that only a couple of hours ago had been groping around in the burrow—and begins to pump it up and down saying: ‘Good to see you, mate. Good to see you.’

‘You too,’ Harry says, hoping Mitch can’t smell the birds on him. ‘Thought I might’ve seen you at the pub.’

‘Nah, mate, not me. I got obligations now. Check this out.’ He pulls out his phone and shows Harry a photo of the twins: two little pink beach balls, all cheeks and gums.

‘Well, I’ll be,’ Harry says, shaking his head. ‘You had it in you after all.’

‘Ho ho. You’d better believe it.’ Mitch gives him a wink. ‘Any luck?’ he asks, nodding his head at the boat.

‘Aw yeah. Few snotties in the net and a dog in the pot. You know how it is.’

‘Snotties?’ Mitch raises his eyebrows. ‘Still about then? Good to know.’ Then, to Harry’s dismay, he starts towards the boat, saying: ‘Don’t mind if I check ’em out, do ya? And have a look at your flares and rego while I’m at it?’

Panic rises like bile in the back of Harry’s throat. ‘Come on, mate. Is that really necessary?’ he asks uneasily. ‘They’re all in order.’

‘Nothing personal. It’s just a routine check, mate. You know how it is. Civic duty and all that.’ He pats Harry on the arm and keeps striding towards the boat. ‘Flo, is that you?’

‘Mitch, how are ya?’ Flo says, positioning herself so that she’s standing squarely between Mitch and the boat. Lucy, Harry notices, is up in it, rummaging around and hopefully doing a proper job of hiding the birds.

Meanwhile, his mother is saying: ‘How’re the bubs? Got a picture?’

‘Do I have a picture?’ Mitch laughs. ‘Wrap your eyes around these little men.’ He gets his phone out again.

While Flo is doing her best to gush, Mitch notices Lucy climbing out of the boat, doing her utmost to keep herself covered by Harry’s jumper as she does so.