The land lay still, interrupted only by the traffic that rustled the leaves as it rushed past. The sound could almost convince him he was back at the sea. Harold found himself halfway through a memory that he was not aware of conjuring into his mind.

When David was six they had gone to the beach at Bantham and he had started swimming out. Maureen had shouted, “David! Come back! Come back right now!” Only the more insistently she called, the smaller the little boy’s head became. Harold had followed her to the water’s edge, and stopped to unlace his shoes. He was about to pull them off when a coastguard had sprinted past, tearing off his T-shirt and hurling it behind him as an afterthought. The chap had gone ploughing into the water until he was waist deep, and then he had plunged his whole body in, slicing through the waves until he reached the child. He had carried David back in his arms. The boy’s ribs stuck out like fingers, and his mouth was blue. “He was lucky,” the coastguard said. He addressed Maureen, not her husband; Harold withdrew a step or two. “There’s a strong current out there.” His white canvas shoes shone wet in the sun.

And Maureen had never said it, but Harold knew what she was thinking because he was thinking the same thing: why had he stopped for his laces when his only son was in danger of drowning?

Years later, he had said to David, “Why did you keep swimming? That day on the beach? Couldn’t you hear us?”

David must have been a young teenager. He had gazed back at Harold, with his beautiful brown eyes that were half-boy, half-man, and he’d shrugged. “I dunno. I was already in shit. It seemed easier to stay in it than come back.” Harold had said it was better not to swear, especially in his mother’s hearing, and David had said something like, Bug off.

Harold wondered why he was remembering all this. His only child ploughing an escape into the sea, and telling him years later to bug off. The pictures had come to him whole, as if they were part of the same moment; points of light dropped on the sea like rain, while David gazed at Harold with an intensity that seemed to undo him. He had been afraid; that was the truth. He had untied his laces because he was terrified that when there were no more excuses, he would not be up to saving his son. And what was more, they all knew it; Harold, Maureen, the coastguard, even David. Harold pushed his feet forward.

He feared there would be more. The images and thoughts that crammed his head at night, keeping him awake. Years later Maureen had accused him of almost drowning their son. He fixed his attention on what was outside.

The road stretched between the dense corridors of hedgerow, and light sieved through the cracks and fissures. Fresh shoots speared the earth banks. Far away a clock chimed three. Time was passing. He drove his feet faster.