‘There’s so much fucking money,’ Peggy said. They’d pissed a lot of money against the wall. Things were tight now, but they had a roof and some clothes and they had enough for noodles without even checking their EFTPOS card.

‘Fucking love being sober,’ Greta said.

‘Fucking love being sober,’ Peggy said.

‘I’m going to check the wallet,’ said Greta, and she grabbed their canvas army surplus bag and pulled everything out until she found the wallet. There was a five-dollar note. Greta looked up at Peggy with a smile so broad her face might come apart at the seams. ‘We’re fucking loaded! We’ve got like’ – she counted it – ‘eight bucks!’

‘We must have three in the bank?’ Peggy said.

Greta looked at her.

‘For the noodles.’

‘For the noodles,’ Greta agreed.

It stopped them for a minute. How lucky they were, and they just stood and looked at the wall and basked in the luck.

‘Shouldn’t we be happy with just the soup?’ Greta asked. ‘Like, finding that eight bucks – that’s pretty awesome.’

Peggy thought about it. ‘I think god would want us to have noodles.’

Greta wondered.

‘God didn’t save us from drowning for us not to have noodles on the shore,’ Peggy said. ‘God wants us to have a noodle life.’

Greta laughed. Peggy did, too. It was okay to joke about god a bit. It wasn’t that kind of god. It was like a small ‘g’ god. Their counsellor at rehab had made them look at the hills surrounding the rehab buildings. ‘Are the hills bigger than you?’ ‘Yes.’ They were never surer of anything before in their life. They couldn’t stop drinking and the hills were big.

Their flatmate Dell was in the lounge. She was reading too – staring at the wall, book in lap. They didn’t have a television and the days without drink were long.

‘Are you guys going to a meeting?’ she said. They’d all moved in together after rehab. It had seemed safe but it really wasn’t. Their other flatmate, Heidi, had started drinking again – or maybe she hadn’t. She was never home, or maybe she snuck in and out without them realising. None of them liked to be left alone.

‘We’re going for tom yum,’ Peggy said. ‘We went to a meeting this morning.’

‘And at lunchtime,’ Greta said.

‘Oh.’ Dell looked at her watch. ‘I think I don’t have time for dinner. Carol’s picking me up.’

‘For the one over that way?’ Peggy asked, pointing in the direction she thought the meeting was.