‘I’m sorry it’s turned out like this.’ She looks at him then, her expression serious as if there’s something else she wants to say, but she doesn’t and he can’t be bothered digging. Not anymore.

He’s done.

As they walk back down the hill together Yvonne turns to him and asks, ‘That thing Purity said to you earlier, what does it mean?’

It’s annoyed him from the start that of all the phrases to remember this was the one he knew instantly. He recalled Purity saying it to Mum often.

‘Is it something about your mum?’ Yvonne asks. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’

‘It means she would have been proud of me. That I would be the crown of honour she wore.’

They glance at each other and carry on walking.

Joe sits outside the house in his car with the seat right back as he sleeps in his suit. He jumps as Kiama raps the window. ‘You’re early.’

The window goes down, ‘I needed to escape my children.’

‘Well, I’m packed. Give me five minutes to get my bag.’

Purity is already there in the yard, with Sarah behind, pulling Kiama’s rucksack.

‘My boy,’ she says. She takes his cheeks in her hands and smiles. Maybe he was wrong about her, maybe she did more than just tolerate him because he was the offspring of Mum.

‘Go well,’ she says, ‘and greet your father.’

‘I will.’

She hugs him hard and he knows he’ll never see her again. But it feels okay.

He tries not to look at Yvonne but when he does, she takes it as an opportunity to engage him. ‘This is really quick,’ she says. ‘I wish you would stay, at least another day.’

He feels that tiredness again, but this time knows what it is, it’s grief. It pulls at his chest and attempts to drag him down to the ground and it’s not only grief for Mum, but for this place, for Purity and even for Yvonne. All these things he’s now ready to move on from.

‘What’s the point?’ he asks.

But she doesn’t have an answer for him.

Joe pops the boot open and Kiama chucks his bag inside.

‘See you, Yvonne.’

He gets in the car and watches her shrink in the rear-view mirror.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Last Tango

April 2010

Yvonne