‘I must have it to keep customers in line,’ said Achilles. ‘Look at how they come to the door after closing time. You and I cook with our right and left hands all day and they turn up when they like and expect us to offer hot food? No thanks, mister! During the war we were too nice to everyone. No more of that bullshit.’

‘You should give us the club,’ said Valia. ‘We’ll keep it under our bed. In future, Lucky can handle anyone who comes in late or drunk or acts rude. Everyone loves Lucky already.’

‘Except for Penny,’ said Lucky.

‘She’ll come around,’ said Valia.

Achilles said: ‘I made that club! Made from our own tree! It’s a special thing.’

‘Let’s not fight about this,’ said Lucky.

‘Compromise then. In future the club stays on the verandah,’ said Valia. ‘You don’t bring it to the kitchen every morning.’

‘I promise to you,’ said Achilles. ‘The club stays on the verandah except in an emergency.’

In her bedroom, Penelope put away the book she was reading and turned off her lamp. The book was Two Lives: Marie and Pierre Curie by Thomas Morton, on loan from the school library. In the dark she thought of radium glowing, a cool blue flicker, and of electrical coiling, vats of chemicals; she saw Marie and Pierre together in a laboratory pouring liquids from flask to flask, their souls filling up. At night they discussed experiments, results, possibilities. Here was what Penny wanted from a partner: constant stimulation, partnership in work, and a never-ending passage of conversation about the most important subjects to them both. Why shouldn’t she want these things? If that life was possible for a Polish woman in Paris, why not a somewhat Greek girl in Sydney?