“Sex. She asked me what I did for sex.”

“And you didn’t think that was a bit off, Cade? Woman her age making enquiries like that? She was readying you.”

“I didn’t really…” Cadan shifted his uneasy gaze off Jago’s shrewd one. Above the radio hung a poster, a Hawaiian girl inexplicably wearing nothing but a lei round her neck and a wreath of palm leaves on her head as she surfed a good-size wave with casual skill. It came to Cadan as he looked upon her that some people were born with amazing confidence, and he was not one of those people.

“You knew what was going on,” Jago said. “S’pose you thought you got yourself a three-way girl with no asking, eh? Or, worst case, a bit of how’s yer father. Either way, you’re happy.” He shook his head. “Blokes your age never can think outside of the envelope, and we both know what that envelope is.”

“She offered me lunch,” Cadan said in his own defence.

Jago laughed. “Bet she did. And she was planning to be your pudding.” He set down his sandpaper and leaned against the board. “Girl like that’s trouble, Cade. You got to know how to read her from the start. She gets a boy by the short ones by giving him a taste, eh? A little bit now, and a little bit then till he’s got the whole. Then it’s on again, off again till he don’t know which part of her’s the part to believe in so he believes in it all. She makes him feel ways he’s never felt, and he thinks no one can make him feel the same. That’s how it works. Best learn from this and let it go.”

“But my job,” he said. “I need the job, Jago.”

Jago pointed at him with his trembling hand. “What you don’t need is that family,” he said. “Look what hooking into the Kernes did to Madlyn. She better off for spreading her legs for that boy of theirs?”

“But you let them use your-”

“’Course I did. When I saw I couldn’t talk her out of letting Santo in her knickers, least I could do was my best to make certain they were safe about it, so I said for them to go to Sea Dreams. But did that help matters? Made them worse. Santo used her up and spat her out. Only good was that at least the girl had someone to talk to who didn’t shout the I-told-you-so’s at her.”

“Reckon you wanted to, though.”

“Bloody right I wanted to. But what was done was done, so what was the point? Question is, Cade, are you going to go the way of Madlyn?”

“There’re obvious differences. And anyway, the job-”

“Sod the job! Make peace with your dad. Come back here. We got the work. We got too much work, with the season nearly here. You can do it well enough if you’ve a mind to.” Jago returned to his own employment, but before he began, he made a final comment. “One of you two’s going to have to swallow pride, Cade. He took your car keys and your driving licence ’cos he had a reason. To keep you alive. Not every father makes that kind of effort. Not every father makes it and succeeds. Best you start thinking of that, my boy.”

“YOU’RE DISGUSTING,” KERRA SAID to her mother. Her voice was trembling. This somehow made things seem even worse to her. Trembling might suggest to Dellen that her daughter was feeling fear, embarrassment, or-what was truly pathetic-a form of dismay when all the time what Kerra was feeling was rage. Seething, white hot, utterly pure and all of it directed towards the woman before her. She was feeling far more of it than she’d felt towards Dellen in years, and she wouldn’t have believed that possible. “You’re disgusting,” she repeated. “Do you hear me, Mum?”

Dellen said in turn, “And what the hell do you think you are, coming upon me like a little spy? Are you proud of yourself?”

Kerra said, “You can turn this on me?”

“Yes, I can. You sneak round here like a copper’s nark and don’t think I don’t know it. You’ve been watching me for years and reporting back to your father and anyone else who’d listen.”

“You absolute bitch,” Kerra said, more in wonder than in anger. “You absolute, unbelievable bitch.”

“Hurts a bit to hear the truth, doesn’t it? So hear some more. You caught your mum off guard and now you’ve got the chance you’ve waited for to do her in. You see what you want to see, Kerra, instead of what’s right in front of your nose.”

“Which is?”

“The truth. He got carried away by the music. You saw for yourself I was pushing him away. He’s a randy little worm and he saw an opportunity. And that’s what happened. So get out of here with your nasty speculation and find something useful to do with your time.” Dellen moved her head in a way that tossed her hair at the same time as it dismissed whatever conclusions her daughter may have drawn. Then, despite her previous words, she apparently decided she’d not said enough, for she went on with, “I offered him lunch. There can’t be a problem with that, can there? Surely that can’t possibly meet with your disapproval. I turned on the radio. Well, what else was I supposed to do? It was easier than making conversation with a boy I barely know. He took the music as some sort of sign. It was sexy, the way Latin music always is, and he got caught up in-”

“Shut up,” Kerra said. “We both know what you had in mind, so don’t make it worse by pretending poor little Cadan tried to seduce you.”

“Is that his name? Cadan?”

“Stop it!” Kerra entered the kitchen. She advanced on her mother. Dellen, she saw, had taken care with her makeup in that way she had: her lips looking fuller, her violet eyes large, everything highlighted like a catwalk model, which was idiotic because the last thing Dellen Kerne had was a catwalk body. But even that she’d manage to make look seductive because what she knew and had always known was that men of every age respond to the voluptuous. Today she was red of scarf, red of shoes, and red of belt, which was little enough colour from which to make a judgement, but her jersey was unseasonably thin and its neck plunged downward, displaying inches of cleavage, and her trousers hugged her hips tightly. And from all of that, Kerra could judge and conclude, which she did with an alacrity born of years of experience. “I saw everything, Mum. And you’re a pig. You’re a cow. You’re a fucking minge bag. You’re even worse. Santo’s dead and even that doesn’t stop you. It gives you an excuse. Poor little me…I’m suffering so…But a nice fuck’ll take my mind off it all. Is that what you’re telling yourself, Mum?”

Dellen had backed away as Kerra advanced. She stood butted up against the work top. Then, on a hair, her mood altered. Tears rushed to her eyes. “Please,” she said. “Kerra. You can see…Obviously, I’m not myself. You know there’re times…You know, Kerra…And it doesn’t mean-”

“Don’t you bloody say it!” Kerra cried. “You’ve made excuses for years, and I’m finished with hearing ‘Your mum’s got problems’ because you know what, Mum? We all have problems. And mine is standing here in this kitchen, looking at me like a lamb that’s heading to get the axe. All innocence and pain and ‘Look at what I’ve had to suffer’ when all she’s done is make us suffer. Dad, me, Santo. All of us. And now Santo’s dead, which is probably down to you as well. You make me sick.”

“How can you say…? He was my son.” Dellen began to weep. No crocodile tears, these, but the real thing. “Santo,” she cried. “My precious.”

“Your precious? Don’t even start. Alive, he was nothing to you and neither was I. We got in your way. But dead, Santo has real value. Because now you can point to his death and say exactly what you’ve just been saying. ‘It’s because of Santo. It’s because of this tragedy that’s befallen our family.’ But it’s not the reason and it never will be although it’s perfect for an excuse.”

“Don’t talk to me like that! You don’t know what I-”

“What? I don’t know what you suffer? I don’t know what you’ve suffered for years? Is that it? Because all of this has been about your suffering? Is that what Stuart Mahler was about? About your terrible horrible agonising suffering that no one can ever understand but you?”