She gently peels away the brown paper and unties the string looped around three thick exercise books, worn at the edges, the covers spotted mouldy brown. She can smell time, and something sharp. Salt? More likely imagination. She always thinks of her grandmother when she smells salt. Grunnie’s skin seemed scented with it, clean and pure like the sea. When Grunnie had told her, when she was a little girl, that she came from sea people, Laura had not been able to sleep that night, too fearful to close her eyes in case there were strange creatures from the past waiting in her dreams, seaweedy bodies dressed in the foam of the sea, staggering from the surf at South Beach to claim her.

The exercise books are inexpensive things, the kind probably sold by Woolworths long ago, but they feel substantial in Laura’s hands.

She moves her coat, scarf and bag to the chair at the back of the lounge, furthest from the busy corridor. It’s quiet, until other visitors arrive, but for the background hum of hospital noise. She takes off her boots and tucks her feet under her.

Do you remember when you were a wee thing, lambsie …

Tears fill her eyes. She hasn’t been called lambsie for more than thirty years.

13

Avril

Ben stopped by earlier. Told a few off jokes that I’m not going to repeat. They all send their love, everyone at the station.

A minute movement of the dressings on his right hand—his forefinger maybe.

Coop?

She watches intently for another sign that her Coop, the real Coop, is responding to her voice, but it was probably just a random muscle movement. Dr Meagher has cautioned her to be patient. It could be days. But it could be hours—he said that, too.

Those guys. They’re always here, always checking up on you.

Martine, busy unwrapping IV packs, eyes her curiously.

She lowers her lying voice. Whenever they get the chance.

A tap on the glass behind her. Laura. Gowning up. Ready to take her place.

Your gorgeous mother’s here, babe. I’m going to go and have a piece of carrot cake for you.

Laura, pulling on mittens, looks rattled. Avril squeezes her arm. You OK?

Mmm. How’s he doing?

We’ve been having a long conversation.

Laura looks like she’s snapping out of a dream. Pardon?

Nothing. There’s no change. So how’s the reading going? What were they—your grandmother’s diaries?

Not exactly. She pauses. Recollections, almost like a long, long letter. Written in the years before she died. Her childhood, mostly, what I’ve read so far. Grim.

Avril waits.

I … Laura shakes her head. She was a very articulate woman, my grandmother.