We climbed steps to the walkway that took us past the boatshed. I paused and looked back down at the boats gently pulling at their ropes, rising and falling in the placid water. Too dull for a spirited youth? I thought. Then I remember the order on the boat, the finely tuned engines and the anthology of sea verse. Jess Polansky moved ahead of me, exuding health and strength and I decided that Ray Guthrie couldn’t have been bored here. She didn’t answer my question until we were walking through the car park.

‘Ray’s good at everything.’ Her look challenged me to make something of it.

We went into the beer garden and I asked her what she wanted, expecting her to go for something soft in keeping with the athletic image.

‘Gin and tonic, please.’

I got one of those and a glass of white wine for me, and carried the drinks over to where she was sitting. The stone wall she sat on was the one in the photograph. I handed her the glass.

‘You and Ray come here much?’

‘Hardly ever; why?’

‘He’s got a photo of you sitting on that wall.’

‘Oh, I remember that. I’d got third in the state slalom titles.’ She gulped down a good deal of her drink, inexpertly. ‘Ray didn’t drink much, neither do I.’

The tenses were becoming confused, as if she was unconsciously getting ready to put him in the past.

‘Have you got any idea why he took off, Jess? Or why he’d be drunk in a Kings Cross pub?’

‘I’ve been trying to think. He didn’t just vanish overnight, you know. He was sort of around less, always pissing off somewhere. This went on for a while. Then he was just… gone.’

‘He didn’t explain? Say what was on his mind?’

She shook her head. ‘Not a great talker, Ray. Quiet bloke. Terrific bloke.’

It was another weighty tribute to him and I let it have its moment. I drank some wine and thought of Helen Broadway and her one smoke a day. I could’ve done with one now to use as I’d used them for twenty years-to help the wandering mind to focus. But I’d decided some time back that a focussing mind was no good without functioning lungs.