‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, per se,’ Michael said, to prove himself as loyal to the memory of his folks as he was to his wife. He was hovering behind her, feeling ineffectual, feeling aggravated, feeling under attack. He’d come home to find her in the garden, in the rapidly descending dusk, hauling stinking clumps of blackened vegetation from the inner recesses of the drains, and if this wasn’t passive-aggressive, he didn’t know what was. ‘C’mon, Ali, you know you could’ve left all that for Eddie,’ he said. ‘He’ll be here tomorrow. He does this kinda shit, that’s why I pay him.’

‘We pay him,’ Ali said. ‘We pay him, Michael.’

‘Yeah, OK, we pay him. Jeez.’

She sat back on her heels. ‘That’s cleared now,’ she said, peering into the chasm, then she looked up at the roof. ‘The leaves come in through the downpipe with the rainwater. It’s that ash, and the tallow, they’re a sodding menace.’

He was quiet for a beat then said, ‘I’ll ask Eddie to clear the gutters more often. Now, shall we go inside?’

She said, ‘You go. I’ll be in soon, in a few minutes anyway,’ and he hesitated a moment as if something was on his mind, then turned and went back into the house. Ali replaced the leaf net and the grate, then sniffed her hand, which smelled foul from the decomposing slime, but she didn’t care, and if it hadn’t been pitch dark and windy, she’d be dealing with the guttering herself right now, rather than facing another quiet night in on the sofa with Michael. She closed her eyes, and allowed herself five minutes to consider Dan, five minutes to imagine she could turn to him, even now; reach him, wherever he was, and express the contents of her heart with a song.

She ran her hands under the garden tap to get the worst of the muck off before going inside, because Beatriz hated alien odours in the pristine kitchen sink. That is, Beatriz used to hate alien odours in the pristine kitchen sink, before Stella left home and she seemed to stop caring about anything. Back in March, in the days before Stella left, the old lady had suddenly realised the girl was going alone, and this fact had felled her, because she’d immediately seen all the dangers of the mortal world lined up in waiting. Ali, rinsing the slime off her fingers, thought now about Beatriz, up in her rooms, where she spent most of her time these days. Nothing was the same here any more. Stella had been to Italy and was already in Spain, Thea was still in Melbourne, Michael was in torment, Beatriz was in mourning. And herself? Where was she at? Good question, she thought; please don’t hold your breath while you wait for the answer.