‘No,’ Donna admitted. ‘You probably couldn’t fly direct.’

‘We stop in Singapore,’ Mira said.

‘Singapore’s a nice airport.’ Greta put a forkful of her sandwich in her mouth. Greta had never been to Singapore Airport. They’d never been out of the country. They never would – one birth certificate, one passport, two bodies. They’d read about the new Singapore Airport in an article about SARS. ‘It has an outside,’ she said, chewing as she said it.

‘Yeah,’ Donna said. ‘We’re there about three hours. There are showers and stuff.’

‘Nice,’ Peggy said. ‘A shower will be nice.’

‘Yeah,’ Mira laughed. ‘After ten hours in the air a shower will be nice.’

‘And a prayer room,’ Greta said. It had been in the article. She was eating and looking at her food.

Mira looked at her. Peggy saw but didn’t fully understand what Greta had said wrong. Greta felt it and, making light of it, said, ‘If you need that sort of thing.’ And everyone laughed again.

They sat talking for a while after they’d finished eating, empty plates and glasses and cups in front of them. Greta and Mira worked themselves into a deep conversation about a finite state machine Mira was developing for a vending machine, and Donna and Peggy went up to pay. Peggy dug around in their wallet.

‘You two,’ Donna said.

‘What?’ Peggy asked, counting out the change.

‘You always have the right amount of cash.’

‘Do we?’ Peggy asked, and it stopped her a bit – did they? ‘We don’t have one of those,’ Peggy said, pointing to Donna’s EFTPOS card.

‘Don’t you?’ Donna said, possibly shocked, possibly surprised, and Peggy realised what she’d done.

‘On us,’ Peggy said, trying to cover it up, and she laughed and Donna punched in her PIN.