Ali looked at her. ‘Actually, Beatriz,’ she said, ‘I think I’m going to be out.’

Michael, startled, said, ‘Are you? Since when?’

‘Just decided. I’m going to see Sheila.’

‘Sheila?’

‘Yep, Sheila Baillie.’ She slid off her stool and gave Beatriz a kiss on her soft cheek. ‘Sorry, Beatriz, needs must,’ she said.

‘Sheila?’ Michael said again. ‘That’s a four-hour drive. Why?’

Ali shrugged. ‘Feels right. I think she might be able to help.’

‘Oh, sure, just go, Mum,’ said Thea without looking up from her phone. ‘We’ll sort all this out in your absence.’

Ali looked at her older daughter, so assured of her place in the world, so convinced of her own excellence, and she could admit to a sort of pride and pleasure that Thea was strong and sure and a world away from the 22-year-old self that she, Ali, had been. Good grief though, this girl could be arrogant.

‘You’ll do no such thing, love,’ Ali said. ‘I’m taking Stella with me.’

So now they were in the car, well on their way on the main road north, which the city planners had named Main North Road, as if they were all out of ideas. It surged through and beyond Adelaide, crowded at first by suburbs, then discount stores, truck stops, car yards and petrol stations, before carving a trajectory through wide, scorched fields as the city, on its astonishing flat plain, fell further and further away. Stella was the happiest Ali had seen her for weeks. When she’d gone upstairs, knocked on the bathroom door and said, ‘Stell, will you come with me to see Sheila and Dora?’ she hadn’t expected the door to fly wide open and Stella to say, with something like hope, something like relief, ‘When? Now?’ Ali had almost begun to believe she would never again say anything that pleased Stella, but her daughter’s stony face had in an instant lost its sullen defences, and she’d smiled and said, ‘I’ll pack some things.’