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you deaf? Give up that sulking and come back here.’
    â€˜I’m not sulking.’ Joanne went slowly back up the beach to where her parents were packing up and tossing crumpled paper and plastic among the rocks. ‘I was observing the beauties of nature, which is more than you morons will ever do.’
    â€˜Shut your mouth and carry this bag up the stairs. It’s going to rain.’
    â€˜Carry it yourself,’ Joanne told her father. ‘I didn’t eat any of it, so why should I—’
    â€˜All right, then you can help Gran up the steps. Get behind her, so she doesn’t fall. Come on, Gran. I’ll give you a hand from above.’
    For the next few minutes, all Rose could see was the wide spread of Gran’s rear view toiling up the steps while the front end gasped and panted. From time to time, Joanne gave her a rough boost, which prompted, ‘Oh, my heart! Oh, let me rest!’ From the top of the cliff, the father put down his hand and pulled her up the last few steps.
    â€˜Oh look.’ Gran turned to see how far she had climbed. ‘Derek’s left his bucket behind. Cost me three pound, that set did. Joanne, go down and fetch it.’
    â€˜He left it, he can get it.’
    â€˜Naow – I’m afraid,’ the child whined, although he had run up and down the steps shouting several times, when he had been told to keep quiet and not wake Gran.
    â€˜Go down at once, Joanne.’ Her mother’s bulk blocked the skyline.
    Joanne looked down and saw the red bucket among the stones and litter. ‘Naow.’ She imitated Derek’s disagreeable whine, and walked on upwards.
    Rose walked up out of the valley and stepped on to the damp gritty earth that was the shore of Noah’s Bowl. She did not have to turn round to know that the valley had gone and the lake was there again.
    When she came out of the thicket, the promising morning had taken back its promise. The grey rock was dark and wet. Joanne’s father was right. It had started to rain. Wait a minute. That was in the past, a year ago. This was now. The journeys with the horse were so real that it was often difficult to pull herself out of them, back into her own life.
    She turned up her collar and hurried home to help Gloria in the kitchen with breakfasts. Frying bacon and sausages and trying to keep pace with the toaster, which would burn the bread if you didn’t watch it, Rose tried to make a connection between the two beaches. What had poor unhappy Joanne got to do with little Georgie and her mother and the old man with a limp? The horse was often enigmatic, and you had to take in as much information as you could, and then try to spot the clues and put them all together and follow them into the heart of the crisis.
    Her right hand hurt, and she dropped a plate and broke it.
    â€˜Clum-
sy
,’ Gloria said without looking round.
    â€˜I’ve got a bad hand.’
    â€˜What’s wrong?’ Gloria turned at once. She loved ailments and accidents.
    â€˜Squashed it in a door.’
    Gloria sucked in her breath, as if she felt the pain herself. ‘Let’s see.’ She picked up the hand and moved the fingers. ‘Looks all right.’
    It did. The hand was not really injured, but Rose could feel the memory of the Lord’s iron grip.
    â€˜Toast burning!’
    The work of the morning went on. Mollie rang up to say that Grandpa was weak, but ordering her about, which was a good sign. Rose said that everything was fine, and only told her the funny things, not the disasters, like the professor’s burned semolina and Dilys leaving.
    They missed Mollie at every turn, but they were managing all right as long as Philip stayed out of their way. In the anxiety of his responsibility, he was so interfering and bossy that they nicknamed him The General, to make the best of him with a joke.
    He was jumpy and nervous, and worried at them all the time. Rose was worried