time of the year, he went down to the beach, and lay on the warm side of a sandhill, smoking and thinking about the night and the girl and this place where he first met her. She was his girl all right, nothing but the best for this boy. He'd show them. Yet there was, even in the glow of possession, a sense of wonder and a growing uncertainty. It was too much to expect of a fate that had given him an old shack in the middle of nowhere, and a mother but no father. He felt somehow incomplete, not because of his father being dead, but because he'd never known him, could not remember, however much he tried. All he had was the name, not even a picture. Just the name. It was his mother's fault. He found himself thinking of Jim. But his old man would've been more like the Davies'. Even that would've been all right with him. If his Mum weren't such an outsider here, he could've asked somebody. But the only one who'd known his mother in the old place was his Uncle Hen and Uncle Hen never talked. They didn't get on too well. Uncle Hen expected him to pay the rent for that dead-loss place. Nobody else would have it—that's why he gave it—but that's typical, the meanest Maori in the whole district, his uncle. It was cold. The sun was nearly down. He got up stiffly, brushed the sand from his clothes, noticed with annoyance his trousers were creased, and stumped off towards the bike. ⋆ ⋆ Everybody was at Davies', even his uncle. The party was well under way. He'd never seen his uncle so tight. He was making a fool of himself, kept on trying to give a speech. He'd swear, and everybody would shut him up, and then he'd swear some more. It was as funny as a fight, at first. Then he began to feel ashamed. He tried to take his uncle out of there, but Hen. turned round, his eyes focusing slowly and his speech coming