This was how things often were these days with Michael, and this was why: Ali had gifted a trust fund to an Arts South Australia scheme to support indigenous musicians, and had also, as well as this, begun funding Tahnee’s career, while at the same time Stella had officially withdrawn from her place at NIDA and was now planning a year’s travel in Europe; and to each of these developments Michael was vehemently opposed. He had passionately, volubly opposed them – but then had to deal with the novelty of failure when his opinion hadn’t prevailed, which was tough for him, because he wasn’t used to dissent; he’d had very little practice, by and large. Sure, Stella had given him a run for his money these past couple of years, when, on turning fifteen, she’d been inhabited by a rebel version of her own sweet self, but from Ali he’d only ever had agreement, even if sometimes it’d been lukewarm. All their lives together she’d tended to bend softly to his will, give way to his point of view. Now, though, she was standing her ground, defending her own plans and Stella’s, and giving their youngest daughter all the support she needed – which wasn’t much, in fact, because Stella was resolute.

‘Ah, Dad, chill, I’ll just apply again,’ she said to Michael blithely. ‘They’ll take me another time if they like me that much. They’ll like me even more with some life experience behind me.’

She was leaving for Italy soon, now she’d made her mind up to bail on NIDA, and there was no one in Adelaide she wanted to hang out with any more anyway, no one she even wanted to bump into in a chance encounter in the mall or at the beach. There was a year group party coming up in late February, a lavish formal event at a house in the hills, and it was her ardent wish to be long gone before the photos hit Facebook. This made no sense to Michael, who repeated with futile persistence that drama school in Sydney – surely, surely – would take her far enough away from her demons in Adelaide? But no, Stella said. No. She wanted continents between herself and her mistake; she wanted a hemisphere between them. The boy – the one she still wouldn’t name – had bragged about his conquest at Victor Harbor, Stella had told Ali that much at least. Bragged about it and, by so doing, unleashed a scandalfest, a gossip free-for-all, and the peculiar, odious, judgemental piety of a whole bunch of seventeen-year-old girls towards their erstwhile friend. ‘I hate them all,’ Stella said. ‘They’re mean and petty, and I want to start all over again, as if none of it had ever happened. I want to erase them all.’

‘You can do that in Sydney, darling,’ Michael said.