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very thoughtful of you. Actually, I was thinking of getting a boat of my own, just a small one, an inflatable maybe, with an outboard motor. You could come for a ride with me, if your mother doesn’t object.’
    ‘Of course I don’t, if he’s supervised,’ Annie said hastily. ‘It’s very kind of you, but – I mean, you don’t have to –’
    ‘I’d like to,’ Michael assured her, turning up the twist of his smile.
    ‘Could I bring my friends?’ Nathan asked.
    ‘Nathan –!’
    ‘It’s okay,’ Michael said. ‘Friends are fine – if the boat’s big enough, and there aren’t too many of them.’
    ‘Just Hazel and George. When will you get the boat?’
    ‘Oh – in the spring, I expect. Too chilly on the river now. Don’t worry, Nat: I won’t forget about taking you out, I promise. I’m not a forgetting kind of person.’
    ‘I wasn’t worried,’ Nathan said. ‘No one calls me Nat, it sounds a bit American.’
    ‘I won’t if you dislike it.’
    Nathan thought about it. ‘I don’t mind,’ he decided, ‘if it’s just you. And if Mum doesn’t mind?’
    ‘It’s your name,’ Annie smiled.
    He told the others about this, in the Den the following weekend. George was both excited and rather scared at the prospect of going out in a boat again, but Hazel looked thoughtful. ‘What’s the matter?’ Nathan asked her.
    ‘D’you think he likes your mum?’ Hazel said, pulling her hair over her eyes as if to hide from his response.
    ‘Why shouldn’t he?’
    ‘You know what I mean.’ She still wouldn’t meet his gaze.
    ‘He’s married …’
    ‘Don’t be silly. Married people often like other people; they get divorced; they marry someone else.’ She added, rather gruffly: ‘I sometimes wish Mum would divorce Dad. He doesn’t love her very much. Great-grandma Effie says he’s no good and never was.’
    There was a short silence. Mention of Effie Carlow, Hazel’s great-grandmother, always commanded respect, since few people had great-grandmothers, and age had given her opinions the aura of wisdom, whether they deserved it or not. What that age was no one was certain: her piled-up grey hair was still abundant, her walk vigorous, her face wrinkled but not withered. She had a sharp nose and a sharper tongue, and her eyes, under heavy lids, were as keen as a hawk’s.
    ‘Even so,’ Nathan said at last, ‘I don’t think you should put your dad down.’
    ‘Only to you.’ She wouldn’t have chosen to confide in George, but Nathan had made him part of their group, and she treated him a little like a favoured pet. George being there counted no more than Hoover. Probably less.
    ‘Anyway,’ Nathan reverted to the original subject, ‘Mum wouldn’t … she wouldn’t want someone else’s husband.’
    ‘My mum says Michael’s very attractive,’ Hazel stated. ‘And Annie’s pretty. She ought to have boyfriends.’
    Nathan didn’t answer. This was a point which had troubled him occasionally. He had friends with single mums, both at the village school and at Ffylde – even some with single dads – and boyfriends and girlfriends were always a problem. Children had to sort them out, encourage the good ones, fend off undesirables. They tended to buy lavish Christmas presents, woo the children with hamburgers and then shoo them from the room so they could indulge in kissing and fondling while their audience giggled outside. Some new partners brought unwanted brothers and sisters in their train. It was a hazard of modern life. Nathan knew he was lucky not to have these problems, but …
but
… ‘Do you want a father?’ Annie asked him once.
    ‘I
have
a father,’ Nathan responded. ‘He’s dead, but he’s still my father. I don’t need another one. Only … well … if you have a boyfriend that’s all right. As long as he’s a nice person, and he loves you. Is there – is there someone?’
    ‘When there is,’ Annie had said, ‘you’ll be the first to know.’
    And now there was