Galina, too, was watching the drunk man, surprised to see here a scene so commonplace back home. She was wondering whether her reaction meant she had separated from Leningrad more completely than she’d realised, or, having learned how different life was in Melbourne, anything shared by the two places now struck her as an anomaly, when the man suddenly lurched forward and fell into the gutter. The traffic was banked up at the intersection. The lights would soon change. He needed to be hauled off the street. She started forward, but Andrew yanked her back. She shook herself free, turned to him, and was thrown for a moment by his expression. ‘What are you frightened of?’ she asked, more an accusation than a question, and went again to cross the road, but a man and a woman were already helping the fellow to safety. She watched them guide him to a seat; he was so drunk he could barely walk. The couple were talking to him, then the woman wrote something down and hurried to a phone box. The man kept a hand on the drunk’s arm to keep him from falling off the seat.

Andrew, too, was watching, although not really seeing. He felt such a fool.

‘You looked so scared,’ Galina said. Her voice was quiet, her face overwritten with curiosity. ‘This man can hardly stand on his feet. The only person he will hurt is himself. What is so frightening to you?’

Andrew had no answer. The drunk was small and slight: even if sober, he could not have done any harm. Andrew shrugged. ‘I’m not much of a drinker,’ he said. ‘And I try to be in control.’

She was staring at him, she must think him ridiculous. He should have kept silent.

‘That makes us alike,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We both prefer to be in control.’

The tram arrived, and they boarded it. In the silence during the short trip, he floundered in his foolishness. He needed to be alone; lunch now was impossible; he could freeze the prawns; they could eat avocado another day. He grappled for excuses, but with his mind in disarray, nothing was making sense.

Galina, in contrast, was trying to make sense of him. Her circumstances demanded a strength that made empathy an indulgence, yet she found herself feeling for him — not sympathy, but kindness and a certain understanding. She could see he was as discomforted in his accustomed life as she was in her new one.

It had occurred to her that the easiest solution to the difficulties she faced as an émigré would be to find an Australian man and marry him. It would also be an out-of-character solution for one who prided herself on her independence. Nonetheless, the temptation remained: marriage would provide a passport to Australian life, and it would strip a good many of the stresses from her days.