The girl dropped down next to her and crossed her legs, and Ali opened one eye to take a sideways look at her younger daughter. She was chewing the nail of her left thumb and staring at the pool water.

‘You good?’ Ali said.

Stella shrugged.

‘What?’ Ali pushed herself back up into a sitting position and noticed as she did so that Stella was right, her skirt was soaked. ‘Stell, what’s up?’

From the house, Beatriz called, ‘Ali, Cass’s here with her car, says she’s driving you to Collinswood,’ and Stella looked at Ali, and tutted and rolled her eyes.

‘Cass can wait,’ Ali said to Stella. ‘She wasn’t supposed to come here anyway.’

‘Whatever,’ Stella said. She turned away with a sort of gloomy fatalism. ‘Just go.’

‘Stella,’ Ali said. ‘What’s wrong, darling?’

Then Cass’s voice came, loud and clear, through the open back doors. ‘Ali Connor, your time is now,’ she shouted, completely misjudging the mood out there in the blissful perfection of the McCormack garden.

‘Zip it, Cass,’ Ali shouted.

‘Don’t try to be cool, Mum,’ Stella said with that flat, teenaged disdain.

‘I’m not trying to be cool. I’m just pissed off with Cass. What’s going on, Stella?’

‘Coo-ee, Stella babe,’ Cass called, waving wildly from across the garden, but Stella barely glanced at her.

‘Seriously, Mum, just go.’

‘Look, OK, I better had, but I’ll catch you, right? Later, or in the morning? I have to get to the studios again, it’s—’

‘—your book, I know, I know, off you go.’ Stella spoke with that toneless, disillusioned voice she used to communicate infinite ennui, and Ali knew there was no talking to her anyway now this mood had descended, so she left her by the pool, staring malevolently at the ripples in the water.

‘Uh-oh, trouble?’ Cass said as they left the house.

‘It’ll pass,’ said Ali.