Andrew Morrow put down the phone. It was the Russian girl, Galina Kogan. After all this time. The phone had rung, he had let it pass to the answering machine, he heard his abrupt, uninviting message followed by a drawn-out silence, and in that moment something alerted him, something insisted he take the call. He jumped up, his cup crashed to the floor, he lunged for the phone. And there she was, Galina Kogan, hesitant and apologetic, reminding him who she was — as if he could have forgotten after her starring role in his thoughts and imaginings these past couple of years. She was here, in Melbourne, the real Galina Kogan, and living just a short distance away.

The phone call had been mercifully brief. They arranged to meet the following Saturday for an expedition to the Queen Victoria Market; he would pick her up at nine and they would travel on the tram together. Saturday, just four days away: too short a time to contrive a reason for cancelling, too long to prevent his nerves from hitting fever pitch.

He rolled himself a cigarette and went up to the roof. Under the radiant sky, with Goddy pattering beside him, he paced and smoked and replayed the phone call. Had he said anything inept? For that matter, had he said anything of consequence? He wondered how long she’d been in Australia, and why she was contacting him now. He suspected she was lonely, that she didn’t specifically want him, she just needed someone, anyone, for company. As to what he might want from her, in real life, he had no idea: within a few weeks of their first and only meeting, it had ceased to be relevant.

Only four days to prepare. Ninety-six hours to work himself into a state of terror. His heart was racing, his mind was a riot, he was already in a state of terror. All the conversations he had imagined now seemed empty, and any new ones he quickly dismissed as puerile or gobbledegook. He tried to calm himself. With so much to see at the market there would be little need for talk; it would be like going to the movies. But they would not be sitting in the dark, they would not be silent, and it would be nothing like the movies. What on earth had he done?