Tilde sat with me a few minutes, eyes on the door, ears monitoring the dining room. Then she patted me and left, switching off the bedside lamp so darkness came all at once as though, by virtue of turning off a light, other things, other problems, ceased to exist. I wondered whether Hannah was allowed to keep the light on in her room.

Downstairs the rising and falling of voices continued, occasionally too loud. At one point, something crashed, followed by an outbreak of sobs, but I could not tell who was who: Mother and her sisters all sounded the same. I whimpered. Not long after, Hannah opened my door and came into the bed with me, cuddling me hard, smelling of unwashed teeth, whispering, ‘O-yo, Poor little O-yo. What a poor little lamb you are.’

The next morning things were different. Everyone was careful around each other at breakfast and didn’t say much. ‘Pass the eggs.’ ‘Pass the toast.’ ‘Milk?’ Mother did not get up til nearly noon, which seemed to confirm there was something bad in her. After breakfast Grandfather took me to the shearing shed. He put a piece of wool in my hand and I rubbed it and held it against my cheek. ‘You’re a good little man, Owen,’ he said. He took me back to the house on his big, solid shoulders. His head was a ledge for my hands; his hands were stirrups for my feet. He put me up so high, I could see mountains and rooftops and birds’ nests in the highest parts of the trees. I felt safe.

When we got back to the house, Mother was up and had our bags packed.

INIMICAL TIMES

The next months and years pile up on one another. In my memory, things happened quickly. Images appear and disappear; objects too, and sounds. There is the sweet, dumb face of Nonna as she becomes frail and ill and confused. There is the twisty stool at La Coccinella where Papa sat me to watch him work. There is Mother’s alliance with the Knoxes, all fur and sherry and buttery afternoon light. There’s the compost heap at Coburg: sharp and flyblown and brooding. There is the upright figure of Mrs Parish and the toy-laden bed at Park Orchards. There is Paddy Cow, my little pet calf, bought as a runt, big-eyed as a cartoon character, soft as a blanket.

There’s Papa’s manic energy as he comes and goes, increasingly excited by his projects, but perhaps a little forgetful of Mother. Papa loves Mother, he tells her he loves her, but he doesn’t spend much time with her anymore; with us. When I look back at photographs, I see what Papa thought he had: a beautiful blonde pin-up wife who, unknown to the photographer, had the added bonus of brains.