‘No idea, darling. I know he had money in Sydney, apart from his salary, and that was a sum his family gave him when he graduated university. He mentioned that he’d squandered it, but God knows what he spent it on. I don’t want to know! I remember he said his family weren’t too pleased. But in general they weren’t pleased with him.’

‘Let me get this straight: he didn’t receive financial help from family in his later years because he lost that initial sum in Sydney?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, this was a long time before I met him. I know Ian came back from Australia with nothing to his name. From that point I suppose his family feared he’d only lose whatever they gave him. They managed that fear by cutting him off. If his brother and sister were alive, you could ask them. But they probably wouldn’t tell you. Horrible people.’

‘The misuse of inheritance was the reason why he fell out with his family?’

‘No, there were many reasons. The Asquiths were high achievers and he certainly was not. He could be unpleasant. These rifts in families don’t have one source. They don’t come from one event. At least they didn’t in mine and they didn’t in Ian’s.’

‘The money, Mum—this is something else you didn’t tell me!’

‘Honestly, Emily …’ Heidi took a breath. ‘I didn’t tell you he wrote a poem or play that went nowhere, and that he was bad with his money when he was a young man—like a normal young person. He also had a large mole next to his nipple.’

‘The money he lost could be important.’

‘Important how? It could be a nothing sum.’

It was almost dark outside. Bands of red sky pushed into the distance on Emily’s tenth day in Sydney. She called Lucky and said she couldn’t make the taping. Sorry. She had to be somewhere else tomorrow. Explain later, couldn’t talk, had to go, bye—giving him no opportunity to speak. If necessary, she could narrate the events of Wheel of Fortune without needing to be there, in the studio, without giving Lucky, the liar, the stage he wanted. He hadn’t given Emily what she wanted. All she’d asked for was the truth about her father and the facts about the franchise.

Lies and silence and repression: she needed clean air, someone straightforward.

Chapter 21: 2002

2002

1.

The day arrived.