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Years ago.’
    ‘That’s right. You came to the house. I remember now.’
    They were both quiet for a moment.
    ‘You’d just returned from Germany,’ Kane continued, plainly rather astonished (and then equally irritated) by the extent of his own recall.
    ‘Yes I had. I went there for a year, almost straight after I’d graduated.’
    ‘I remember.’
    He sniffed, trying to make it sound like nothing.
    ‘You have an impressive memory,’ she said, then put a polite hand up to her mouth, as if to suppress a yawn. This almost-yawn infuriated him. He didn’t know why.
    How old was she, anyway? Thirty-one? Thirty-three?
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s just your mole. Your birthmark. It’s extremely memorable.’
    She didn’t miss a beat.
    ‘Of course,’ she said.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he struggled to repress a childish smile, ‘that must’ve sounded rude.’
    ‘No…’ she shook her head, her voice still soft as ever, ‘it didn’t sound rude.’
    Didn’t sound rude.
    Kane stared at her. She stared back at him. He took out his phone and inspected his messages.
    ‘A psychiatrist,’ she observed mildly, ‘might call what you do with that phone “masking behaviour”.’
    He glanced up, astonished –
    The cheek of it
    – then quickly checked himself. ‘I guess they might,’ he said, returning casually to his messages and sending a quick response to one of them, ‘but then you’re just a foot doctor.’
    She chuckled. She didn’t seem at all offended. ‘You have eyes just like your father’s,’ she murmured, gracefully adjusting the long hem of her skirt (as if hers was a life without technology, without chatter. A life entirely about thinking and pausing and feeling. A quiet life). Kane’s jaw stiffened. ‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured thickly, ‘they’re a completely different colour.’
    She shrugged and then sighed, like he was just a boy. She glanced down, briefly, at her son (as if, Kane felt, to make the connection 100 per cent sure), then said blandly, ‘It was a difficult time for you.’
    ‘Pardon?’
    He put his phone away. The tone of his voice told her not to persist, but she ignored the warning.
    ‘Difficult. With your mother. I remember thinking how incredibly brave you were. Heroic, almost.’
    His cheeks reddened. ‘Not at all.’
    ‘Sometimes, after I’d seen her, I’d just sit in my car and shake. Just shake. I didn’t know how you coped with it. I still don’t. You were so young.’
    She smiled softly at the memory, and as she smiled, he suddenly remembered. He remembered standing at the window and seeing her in her car, shaking: her arms thrown over the steering wheel, her head thrown on to her arms –
    Oh God
    His gut twisted.
    He turned and gazed out into the car park. He was unbelievably angry. He felt found-out – unearthed – raw. But worst of all, he feltcharmless. Charm was an essential part of his armoury. It was his defensive shield, and she had somehow connived to worm her way under it –
    Damn her
    He drew a deep breath.
    Outside he could suddenly see Beede –
    Huh…?
    – walking through the play area towards the blond imposter and the horse. The imposter had now dismounted. He was touching his head. He seemed confused. Beede offered his hand to the horse. The horse sniffed his hand. It appeared very receptive to Beede’s advances.
    ‘I wonder what happened to the other man,’ Kane mused, then shuddered. Everything was feeling strange to him. Inverted. And he didn’t like it.
    ‘Maybe there were two horses,’ the boy said. He was now standing next to the table and fingering Kane’s lighter. He looked up at Kane and held it out towards him. ‘Red,’ he smiled, ‘that’s your colour.’ The lighter was red.
    He showed his mother. ‘See?’
    She said nothing.
    ‘See?’ he repeated. ‘He comes from fire.’
    ‘Don’t be silly.’ His mother took the lighter off him and held it out to Kane herself.
    Kane walked over and took it from