I think Mother’s wine was not the first glass of wine she’d had that day. I’d smelt wine on her breath when she put me in the bath at five o’clock. I already knew the smell of wine. It was like ripe fruit that had sat in the bowl too long.

Aunt Tilde watched Mother across the table and then turned to Grandmother. ‘Just one cigarette, Mother,’ she said. ‘Can we get Veda an ashtray?’

But Grandmother wouldn’t get Mother an ashtray. There was silence for a bit, then Gramp announced that ‘if Veda’s smoking’, he was ‘darn well getting my pipe then’.

Once Grandfather had safely left the room, the knives came out. That was how Mother described it later anyway, on the train home. Aunt Jane narrowed her eyes. She put her elbows on the table. Mother had told me elbows on tables were not a good thing in the Tablelands, but Jane didn’t seem to know this. It seemed Aunt Jane owned the table once she got her elbows on it. She looked long and hard at Mother, and my cousin Hannah stopped putting food in my mouth. ‘While Dad’s out of the room, Veda,’ said Jane, smiling a not-real smile. ‘We’ve all been wondering why exactly you came here. Now. After all this time.’

Mother was un-fussed. She put her head to the side, as though she were thinking, and took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘Because our mother wants to be surrounded by her daughters,’ she finally said. She smiled at Grandmother. ‘And because I want you all to get to know Owen.’ There was an inch of Riesling left in the bottle in the centre of the table, and Mother reached over and took it.

Jane continued: ‘But you’re a married woman now, Veda. What does your husband think about you coming all this way without him? Coming all this way on your own? Mum and I have wondered … Is something wrong?’

‘Oh Jane,’ said Mother. ‘Not every man is a New England farmer’s son. Nice though they are and, certainly, good husband material should one manage to net one. I don’t need my husband’s permission to go where I bloody well like.’

‘Veda, there’s no swearing at my table either,’ Grandmother said.

Mother ignored her. ‘Why are you worried, Jane? Do you think I come back with the aim of corrupting some nice farm boy?’ She puffed rudely on her cigarette—somehow the cigarette made her both rude and superior to Jane. ‘Only they’re not nice farm boys, most of them, ya see …’

‘I don’t see that’s relevant to anything, and it’s not what I meant …’