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‘My father’s not dead—he took off just before my sister was born,’ she informed him with crisp detachment. ‘He and Mum weren’t married, so I suppose he figured he was under no obligation to stick around. Mum and Laurie were killed a year later when a gas heater exploded in our kitchen, but either my father didn’t read the papers or he was afraid he might be asked to live up to his paternal responsibilities because he never even showed up for the funeral.’ After eighteen—no, twenty years—the memory had lost most of the power to hurt.
‘You were actually there when your mother was killed?’ Ryan said, a slight hitch in his long stride.
‘It was my birthday. Mum was wrapping my present. I was in the next-door neighbours’ garden playing on their seesaw,’ Nina recited automatically, as if by rote, before switching back to her original theme. ‘Not that my grandparents would have let my father take me away from them even if he had turned up. But I was only six, and Gran didn’t want me growing up as an only child, so she and Gramps fostered Karl the following year. Gran figured that his being younger than me would mean that at least I could have the familiarity of my big-sister role back.’
‘You obviously took it seriously. Ray said you were always taking the blame for Karl’s high jinks when you were younger.’
‘Karl came from an abusive family,’ Nina protested. ‘He’s always needed a lot of love.’
‘Don’t we all,’ Ryan murmured and then laughed as, with a soft plop, Zorro sailed off the bank and landed beside them on the dry sand, legs already churning. He ran ahead, barking furiously, then circled back, nose down, following a Byzantine trail of invisible scents. ‘I thought gluttony had got the better of him back there.’
‘He probably knows about the biscuits in your pocket,’ Nina said wryly.
‘I suppose it’s okay for him to run around without a leash?’
‘Are you kidding? This is Shearwater. We don’t go for the kind of suffocating regulations that you city dwellers do. And besides, there’s no policeman on the island summer or winter, so your chances of being apprehended for some petty misdemeanour are slim to none.’
‘In other words, you make up all the rules yourselves and then decide individually whether you want to obey them or not. Sounds like anarchy to me.’
‘I suppose personal freedom would sound like anarchy to an autocrat,’ she said, stopping by the first outcropping of rocks—huge, weathered grey boulders buried halfway in the rippling sand, ancient remnants of the original cliffs.
‘You think I’m dictatorial?’
‘I think you like to believe you’re right about everything,’ she said tartly. ‘That can make a man very domineering. You can put the chair down here.’
‘Yes, ma’am, whatever you say, ma’am,’ he mocked with his obsequious haste to obey.
He unfolded the squat metal legs of the chair, the low-slung seat almost touching the sand as he wedged it firmly into place. He waited until she sat down before, to her dismay, sprawling out on the sand beside her.
‘You don’t have to stay,’ she said, twisting to get her sketchbook and pencils out of the chair pocket.
‘I know.’ He uncapped his bottle of water and took a long swallow. She couldn’t help noticing the breeze stirring the silky triangle of hair on his chest.
‘You should put your shirt back on,’ she said, balancing the unopened sketchbook on her denim-clad thighs.
He screwed the cap back on the bottle and leaned over to place it behind them in the shadow thrown by her chair. ‘I’m not cold.’ His skin still glowed from the effects of his healthy exertions.
‘You could still catch a chill. Once you stop moving, your muscles cool down very rapidly, and by the time you feel cold, it could be too late. You don’t want to pull a muscle while you’re up that ladder.’
‘Yes, Mummy,’ he jeered.
‘Don’t call me that!’ There was a sharp snap as the pencil in her hand broke.
They both looked down at the damage and Ryan was first to react. He jackknifed to face her and lifted the clenched fist bearing the broken stump, carrying it swiftly to his lips.
