Elaine’s house appears to have every light on. I wonder if she has decided to have a gathering. I sit in the ute tossing up possibilities. The house is very large, as if she and Tito renovated it expecting to have many children or endless visitors. The times I took Tito out to meet people, we met up at his mailbox, so I never got to see the house — or Elaine, for that matter. It’s only one storey, but the roof and the ceilings, I can see, are high. Even in the dark, I can pick up the lushness of the lawn and the scope of the garden. It isn’t in bad taste, but maybe a bit too keen to let you know how much money is lying about. I don’t see any other guests’ cars, but I don’t want to have to go home to whatever Mick might be doing, so I get out of my vehicle and find my way through a wrought-iron gate in the centre of a hedge, across that lawn, and up the steps to the verandah and the glass front door.

No one is about. No one comes to greet me. I clear my throat as loudly as I can, and then give a half-hearted ‘Hello’ not in any way reminiscent of Elaine’s version at my place. Nothing. I wait for a minute, and then turn to go. I don’t really want to be here anyway. I can sit in the car and listen to music if the thought of Mick is too much. And then I hear a faint, single sound. It could be an animal in the paddocks: a cow coughing; a hoot from an owl. I spin around, hoping that facing the paddocks will help me pick it up a bit better. I hear it again, but not from the dark — it is coming from inside. I move quickly, reefing the door open and stepping into a house that is a puzzle to me. The room is as big as a machinery shed: there are couches in a semicircle down one end, and a kitchen bench down the other. There is some sort of indoor fish tank with … I don’t know … sharks or something in it probably.

‘Elaine?’

A sob in response. Maybe from the next room. I run through a massive archway into an even larger room with more couches and chairs, separate in their own nooks, but dominated by a huge fireplace. Sitting on one of the couches is Elaine. Her clothes looked ripped, and she is hunched over with her face in her hands. Every now and then, she lets out a sob that shakes even my soiled heart.

‘Elaine?’

She looks up. Tears have smudged her make-up, and wet her cheeks. There is blood mingling with the moisture seeping down her face.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask, because I am an idiot.