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signs of life, and then, when Ian returned, made them both supper and they went back to bed, locking the house front and back – which was something not always remembered.
    A week passed. Roz was sitting alone at the table with a cup of tea when there was a knock. She could not ignore it, she knew that, though she would have liked to stay inside this dream or enchantment that had so unexpectedly consumed her. She had dragged on jeans and a shirt, so she was respectable to look at, at least. She opened the door on the friendly, enquiring face of Saul Butler, who lived some doors along from Lil, and was their good neighbour. He was here because he fancied Lil and wantedher to marry him.
    When he sat down and accepted tea, she waited.
    â€˜Haven’t seen much of you lot recently, and I can’t get any reply at Lil’s.’
    â€˜Well, it’s the school holidays.’
    But usually she and the boys, Lil and the boys, would have been in and out, and often people waved at them from the street, where they all sat around the table.
    â€˜That boy, Ian, he needs a father,’ he challenged her.
    â€˜Yes, he does,’ she agreed at once: she had learned in the past week just how much the boy needed a father.
    â€˜I’m pretty sure I’d be a father to Ian – as much as he’d let me.’
    Saul Butler was a well-set-up man of about fifty, not looking his age. He ran a chain of artists’ equipment shops, paints, canvases, frames, all that kind of thing, and he knew Lil from working with her on the town’s trade associations. Roz and Lil had agreed he would make a fine husband, if either of them had been looking for one.
    She said, as she had before, ‘Shouldn’t you be saying this to Lil?’
    â€˜But I do. She must be sick of me – staking my claim.’
    â€˜And you want me to support – your claim?’
    â€˜That’s about it. I think I’m a pretty good proposition,’ he said, smiling, mocking his own boasting.
    â€˜I think you’d be a good proposition too,’ said Roz, laughing, enjoying the flirtation, if that was what it was. A week of love-making, and she was falling into the flirtatiousmode as if into a bed. ‘But that’s no use is it, it’s Lil you want.’
    â€˜Yes. I’ve had my eye on Lil for – a long time.’ This meant, before his wife left him for another man. ‘Yes. But she only laughs at me. Now, why is that, I wonder? I’m a very serious sort of chap. And where are the lads this morning?’
    â€˜Swimming, I suppose.’
    â€˜I only dropped in to make sure you are all getting along all right.’ He got up, finished his tea standing, and said, ‘See you on the beach.’
    Off he went and Roz rang Lil, and said, ‘We’ve got to be seen about a bit more. Saul dropped in.’
    â€˜I suppose so,’ said Lil, her voice heavy, and low.
    â€˜We should be seen on the beach, all four of us.’
    A hot morning. The sea shimmered off light. The sky was full of a light that could punish the eyes, without dark defending glasses. Lil and Roz, in loose wraps over their bikinis, slathered with suncream, made their way behind the boys to the beach. It was a well-used beach, but at this hour, on a weekday, there were few people. Two chairs, set close against Roz’s fence, were faded and battered by storm and sun, but serviceable, and there the women sat themselves. The boys had gone running into the sea. Tom had scarcely greeted his mother; Ian’s look at Lil slid off her and away.
    The waves were brisk enough for pleasure, but in here, in the bay, were never big enough for surfing, which wenton outside, past the Teeth. For all the years of the boys’ childhood they played safe, on this beach, but now they saw it as good enough for a swim, and for the serious dangerous stuff they went out onto the surfers’ beaches. The two were swimming well apart,