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He brushed his hand over the rippling surface of the water His lower lip was gilded by firelight, accentuating the slightly sulky look of a chastened schoolboy

‘She has this rooed since I was a boy It is one of the few things I re with her there and I remembered’ He rubbed his ar a children’s book She has a good voice Very deep’

‘Do you remember the story?’

‘Noso by a river She has pale hair, not likeyou this It is foolish’

‘No, it isn’t Whatever she did, you have so few memories of her, you should cherish them’

‘I’d rather not wastethe people who discarded me’

‘They didn’t precisely discard you, they sent you to Poppy and Janet who loved you unconditionally Do you knoas jealous of you as a child? I used to wish they were my parents’

He shook his head, but he was s

‘What a discontented lot we huht have had her weaknesses but she fought like a tiger to keep you, no matter how far into the dark she sank’

‘Yes, that is true,’ she ad her words were ‘Do you remember your father?’

His s water

‘My onlywe all kneeled in the great hall for eternity and a day while he bellowed sermons at us’

‘That sounds horrible’

‘It was boring and hard on the knees, not horrible Unless one of us coughed or nodded off Then I’d forgotten, too, what a temper my father had He would roar like a wounded bear and loom over you The ht, I was lucky to be sent away’

‘That doesn’t make it any easier to understand as a child’

He finally looked up, his fingers stilling on the water’s surface

‘No Poppy and Janet were so different I had no idea what to expect at first On the way to Egypt we docked in Malta and for a fewover edand alrite where I was going I ree’

The knot inside her untangled as he spoke She had no idea what toone

‘Are you cold? Your hair is wet because of oosebumps on her folded arms and she shivered and shook her head, the tip of her plait shifting in the water