The boat was small; it wouldn’t have fitted more than two. Jim told me where to sit and how to lean but he did all the work. He said there wasn’t much of a breeze, but once we got towards the centre of the river it might pick up some. I dangled my fingers over the edge of the boat into the water as the wind ruffled the sail, making it slap and then catch taut, my fingers feeling the water heavy against them. I felt my hair pull loose from its pins and pushed what I could behind my ears. Jim looked over at me for what felt like the first time since I’d told him about Roy.

‘It’s nice to see your smile again,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed it.’

‘You didn’t tell me how pretty it is here.’

‘Maybe I hoped you’d come and see for yourself.’

It felt so light, our banter, but unlike the talk in the bar it meant something. I felt like I’d been asleep for weeks and was just waking up. I shut my eyes and watched the sun draw pink and orange patterns inside my eyelids, and when Jim shouted, ‘Duck!’ I thought he meant the bird kind and opened my eyes, murmuring, ‘Where?’

He meant the lower-your-head kind, I realised later, coming to consciousness in the sunroom of their house, a lump the size of an apricot on my forehead. The wind had changed course and with it the boom. It had swung straight into my forehead, knocking me almost out of the boat and unconscious at that. Jim sat beside me, describing how he thought at first he’d killed me, and his relief when he saw I was still breathing. I started mumbling as he carried me out of the boat, he said, but I wasn’t making any sense.

‘You kept saying, “Where’s Mum? What’s happened?” So I’d tell you and you’d just ask me the same thing again.’

Jim sat there with his cool hand holding mine while his mother fussed around and brought in a doctor.

The doctor’s fingers were cold and dry on the inside of my wrist. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jim’s mother pull him into another room, and I heard the raised voices of their argument through the door they shut behind them.

‘So I hear you met Jim on the ship over from Australia. You’re one of them Australian brides our boys met over there?’

‘I am.’

‘This’ll be a bit bright now.’ He shone a little penlight into my eyes, and when he moved it away the bright spots lingered.

‘Can you tell me what day it is today, Sarah?’

I shut my eyes, trying to think. All the days had lost meaning, but my day off was a Sunday.

‘Sunday?’