winter a new couple moved down from London, causing a minor flutter of interest among less glamorous residents. They were in their thirties: he was a lecturer in history at East Sussex University and a writer of up-market period novels, popular enough to be stocked in most bookshops instead of having to be specially ordered, and she was an actress of the intellectual type who had appeared regularly on stage and television. His name was Michael Addison, hers Rianna Sardou (Rianna reputedly shortened from Marianne), but they were assumed to be married, though she seemed to be away a great deal, on tour with a play or on location shoots for a TV drama or bit-part film role. However, Michael was around most of the time, and the villagers pronounced him pleasant and friendly, and began to call him Mike. He would have a pint in the pub of an evening, and chat to Lily Bagot in the deli, and to Annie in the bookshop. He was rather good-looking, in a tousled, don’t-give-a-damn sort of way, with a one-sided smile which might have been irresistible if he had been inclined so to employ it. He wore country clothes – Barbour jackets, wellies, trainers – and glasses for reading and driving. His wife on the other hand, when actually seen, was something of a disappointment. The rumpled, unmade-up look which suited Michael so well was not what the village expected of an actress, particularly not one with a name like Rianna, and local opinion found her aloof and unapproachable. She had the appropriate cheekbones, but they displayed more angularity than beauty, and her hair, though long and dark, was usually scraped back into a tight coil, with loose ends spraying over the crown of her head. Gossip said she neglected Michael, and local attitudes became tinged with an unexpressed sympathy when he was around.
They had bought an oast house on the edge of the village, with two round towers under pixy-hat roofs, and a long building in between, wood-panelled, antique-furnished, expensively renovated. The River Glyde flowed past it on its meandering way through the water-meadows, and their garden ran down to the bank, with mooring for a couple of boats, though they only appeared to have a dinghy, left behind by a previous owner. The house had been empty for a while before they moved in, and Nathan, George and Hazel had once ‘borrowed’ the dinghy, almost coming to grief in the grip of a current too strong for their oarsmanship. They had had to ram the boat into the bank in order to avoid being swept away – or sinking, since the planking proved far from watertight. Nathan, seeing Michael in the shop one day, felt obliged to mention these hazards, though he would have preferred it if his mother hadn’t been within earshot. ‘You – took – that – boat – out – without – permission?’ Annie had paled from a mixture of anger and terror.
‘It wasn’t stealing!’ Nathan protested. ‘We put it back afterwards – and anyway, it didn’t seem to belong to anybody then.’
‘Boats are dangerous,’ Annie said, dismissing the issue of theft unconsidered. ‘You could’ve drowned. What were you thinking of?’
‘We can all swim. We wouldn’t drown, honestly.’
‘There are weeds under the water which can drag you down …’
‘Never mind,’ Michael intervened. ‘Thanks for warning me, Nathan. That was 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 Michael Addison. Who was nice. And Lily Bagot said he was attractive. He had a wife, but she was an actress, and everyone knew actresses had affairs and got divorced a lot: it went with the territory. Still … maybe he loved his wife, and missed her when she was away, turning to Annie only for comfort. Nathan decided he didn’t like the situation whichever way you looked at it. If he starts to give me presents and take me for hamburgers, he thought, then I’ll know.
The years in Eade had turned Annie from a girl into a woman. Time had firmed her softness and tapered the planes of her face; her fluffy hair was cut short and fell over her forehead in light brown feather-curls. She still wore little makeup, but the country air gave