Harry pauses for a moment, and realises he doesn’t know. Not because he doesn’t know, but because he does know and it seems too easy: dob Jem in, end up with Lucy, live happily ever after.

But he’s too close to it. He’s too tangled up in it. It’s not his place. Or if it is, it’s not the place he wants to be; it’s not the person he wants to be. It’s wrong. Even though he knows what’s right, he knows it’s wrong. He can’t benefit from a man’s death like that. And he can’t fuck Jem’s missus then get him arrested, all in the space of twenty-four hours.

‘I don’t know if these things should just go unpunished,’ he mumbles. ‘But. I dunno. It’s up to you, Luce. It’s not my place. None of this is my place.’

Lucy makes an indistinct sound, which muffles into his sternum. Then she looks up at him and asks, voice all small: ‘Do you think Mitch will tell Jem?’

This? Harry thinks, uneasily. This is what’s worrying her most?

‘I don’t know,’ Harry says slowly. ‘Maybe.’ And as he asks, ‘Are you going to tell Jem?’, he squirms inwardly because he realises he’s no different from her. Because, for him, this is the real question, and the other question—Are you going to dob Jem in?—matters to him most because he so badly wants her to remove Jem from her life, to shuck Jem from her skin the way Jem shucks abalone after abalone from boulders and clefts, day in, day out. Harry cares about justice, sure. But above all, he wants her. God, he wants her. He never knew shit could feel like this.

‘I don’t know,’ she mumbles.

He takes a deep breath. ‘Listen, Luce,’ he says as his hands go to her face, fingers nudging her chin so she has to look up at him. Her tear-puffed eyes are little red slits. ‘I’m not gonna make you do anything. But I want you to know, I’m staying here. On the peninsula.’

Her mouth turns to an o. ‘I didn’t realise you might be leaving,’ she says.

‘I didn’t know which way I was going. But I do now. I’m staying here for good and I’m going to start fishing with me old man’s licence and maybe get me own place. And I’m not gonna tell you what to do, and I know I don’t have much to offer you, but I just wanted you to know that I’m going to be here. If you decide you want me.’

He knows his eyes are begging her to answer him—to say, Harry I want you.

Instead she just smiles sadly and pecks him on the cheek and says honestly, ‘I don’t know what I want, Harry.’