Free Trains and Lovers: A Novel by Alexander McCall Smith

launched the boat immediately. It sat well in the water and was easy to row, although it had a high freeboard, and was sensitive to the wind. He quickly became used to that, though, and felt safe even when the river was swollen by heavy rains. He used it for fishing, or simplyfor rowing down towards the estuary, riding the current, and then back up. He liked the sensations involved: the feeling of being borne by the tide, the sound made by the oars as they cut into the water, the thumping sound of wavelets against the curve of the bow, a sound that was like tiny, muffled explosions.
    A few weeks after he had first used it, he rowed down the river one afternoon, intending to fish at the point where the fresh water met the salt. Fish seemed to like that confluence, and he might return home with a catch that his mother would use for the evening meal, freshly grilled and served with new potatoes bought from neighbours who had a large vegetable patch.
    He rowed out. Rains inland had swollen the river and this, combined with a high tide, made for a broad expanse of water. The sky above was cloudy, and the surface of the water was like milky glass. There would be fish, he thought; they liked such conditions.
    He stopped rowing and started to prepare his line. This was absorbing work, and he did not notice that one of the oars had slipped out of its rowlock and fallen into the water. Caught in the current, it drifted away, sufficiently quickly that when he turned and saw what had happened it was well away from the boat.
    He put aside the fishing rod and started to use the remaining oar as a paddle. But it was slow work, as the boat swung round with each stroke and made little progress. It was on the edge of the estuary now, and he realised that it would soon be carried out into the sea itself. A gull swooped low to investigate, mewing, curious and hungry.
    There was another boat not far away. This had an outboard, and he could see that it was heading for an object in the water—an object that must be his oar. He waved, and the figure crouched in the boat waved back. The engine note changed, and the other boat stopped as the oar was retrieved; then there was a high-pitched buzzing as it turned and headed for him. There was a boy in the boat.
    “Here it is,” shouted the other boy, throttling back. “Do you need a tow?”
    He could have rowed back, but thought that he would accept. A line was thrown and secured to a cleat on the boat’s bow.
    “Climb in here,” said his rescuer. “The engine pulls better if we’re low in the water.”
    He stepped into the other boat and said thank you. This boy, he saw, was about the same age as he was. He was wearing jeans and a red tee-shirt; he was barefoot. He introduced himself as Bruce.
    “I’ve seen you in your boat,” he said. “I wondered if you were catching anything.”
    “It depends,” he said. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes not. Like all fishing.”
    Bruce smiled. “Yes. Like all fishing.”
    The outboard motor drowned conversation, and they made the rest of the journey without saying anything to one another. When they reached the jetty where David tied his boat, Bruce tied up too.
    “I’ll come with you to your place,” he said. “I’ve got nothing else to do.”
    They went home. He introduced his new friend to his parents. Then they drank a soda sitting on the porch, and Bruce told him about how his parents had bought a house nearby but seemed not to get many opportunities to use it.
    “They’re always busy,” he said. “They work all the time.”
    His father was a professor at Princeton, he explained. He was a mathematician. “He makes mathematical models all the time. He’s obsessed. There’s only one word for it—obsessed.”
    David laughed. He said: “Parents need help.”
    Bruce stayed for an hour, and then announced that hewould have to go as he was meeting a girl. He was not sure whether he really liked her, but he thought he did.
    “She’s obsessed