That afternoon, while Lucky napped and Gregor sat at the edge of the cot in the dark, fidgeting and smoking, a woman named Valia Asproyerakas boarded a train to Central Station. Seated at the carriage window, aft-facing, she caught herself in reflection. Her most prominent feature was her bare arm, olive against the blues of her long dress. Along her forearm were little scars from excursions deep into the cafe oven. She resumed reading Jude the Obscure. Valia saw her own conditions reflected in Thomas Hardy’s Wessex: a place of crushed men and brilliant but thwarted women, of predetermined lives, wet statues and children turning in their beds. Tears almost came to Valia’s eyes when something bad happened to Hardy’s people.

Valia was taking a brief holiday from her father’s small business, and from the home he built behind the cafe. Achilles Asproyerakas had decided that his eldest daughter ought to spend her unmarried years serving customers in the family cafe while Achilles worked in the kitchen from 8 am to 9 pm; each day their lives folded and folded again behind counter and stove. Valia used to be warm and charming with customers, because she wanted to show them how much she loved life. And she did like the work; she was good at it. But by 1945 the long hours had distorted her enjoyment of labour, and lately she just smiled and showed people the menu. Her younger sister, Penelope, still at school and useless in the cafe, was spared from any duties in the family business, at least for the time being.

Their mother had died at the age of 31. Two grandmothers also died young. Valia discerned this pattern of early death and believed holidays could save her sanity, and probably her life (Achilles opposed regular time off). Sunday afternoons were the extent of her free time. She didn’t know how to confront her father, not yet, but he could be managed and manipulated.

She planned to stay at a hotel in the city for the weekend, to be alone, free to be another Valia—a double, an avatar, a Valia with a different surname. To escape for the weekend, she told her father she’d been called up for compulsory weekend exercises with AWAS—the Australian Women’s Army Service. Achilles’ ego deferred to the war. He assumed his daughter had no choice, was legally compelled to attend this AWAS training exercise, or whatever jumble of letters she was throwing at him.

‘How often can this happen?’ Achilles said. ‘I need you in the shop.’

‘I’ll tell them you object.’

‘Explain your mother is dead and there’s just you and me to run this place. Don’t mention Penelope—they’ll take her next!’

‘I’ve already written and explained our situation.’

‘What kind of country drafts women?’

‘They don’t give us guns.’

‘This affects our business!’

‘It’s for one weekend.’