If she keeled over now, there’d be no one around to pick her up; so it was only prudent, in the circumstances, to be careful. Of course, if she was being really sensible, she’d sell the boat yard, put a deposit on a little flat and get a steady job in an office. Maybe she could even get a steady man and live happily ever after? Harry plonked herself down at the edge of the pontoon, pulled off her shoes and used her hat to wipe her forehead as she dangled her feet in the cool water. Late August and the boat yard was more like a graveyard, with the sad pale husks of once blithely coloured and polished vessels now spectral in the shadows. One or two of her most independent skippers had slipped their moorings in shimmering pink dawns to set off on summer passages. The remaining boats, even fewer now, moved only in the turn of the tide. A little wave rolled across the creek and lapped up at her shins, a rope creaked and strained close by and a solitary seabird cried as it crossed the lonely sky.
