I wait until Eliza and her mother head to the baby pool before I make my way back. Both Lou and Sarah start talking when I’m ten feet away, my mind still at a beach nearly twenty years ago.

‘My lot are hungry. Should we eat now?’ Lou asks.

‘Petey spat. He’s spitting.’ Sarah has her hands on her hips.

I glance across at the baby pool as I walk. Eliza and her mother, both still dressed, stand in water only deep enough to cover their ankles. Eliza is holding baby whatever-she’s-called and dipping her tiny toes into the water. The baby curls her legs up at each touch, making it look like Eliza is lifting a large egg up and down.

I walk onto the first step of the bigger pool to cool my feet. Lou stands beside me. ‘That baby reminds me of Andrew’s retarded uncle Frank. Have you met Frank?’

I laugh with such a burst that my lips vibrate. She guffaws at my noise and we lean into one another and laugh together. Our children – stern Sarah, grinning Petey, goggle-eyed Joanne, little Joe and Daniel – fan out at our feet and regard us as though we are an exhibition at the zoo. Lou lifts one foot and splashes the children. ‘Hey,’ shouts Sarah, but the others giggle and swim away, like a pod of happy dolphins.

‘Funny buggers, aren’t they?’ Lou says. I wipe tears of laughter off my cheeks.

As Petey swims away I notice his bandaid has peeled off, showing the gaping sore beneath. Yesterday, when I’d cleaned his wound, the result of the neighbourhood bully Tom Sullivan knocking him onto the asphalt, he’d been so brave. He’d clutched my arm and bitten his lip when I’d dabbed disinfectant on his raw skin, stayed sombre and uncomplaining as I’d applied a cotton pad, watching my face the entire time. When I’d finished, he put his other arm around my neck and hugged me.

This should be enough. To be loved. To stand in the sun with a friend and a gaggle of children. To feel water lap against my skin, to walk across cut grass and lie on a warm towel. To plan birthdays, cook dinners, clean the house, take care of the people around me. To know my brother will be home in two days. To know a new adventure is on the horizon, planned and prepared for. But I turn to Lou and see her smile has dropped and she’s looking at me with an expression I don’t recognise, sadness and love together. I hear my daughter shouting at her brother. I feel the skin on my back suddenly too hot, burning.

CHAPTER FIVE

Friday 6 December 1974

Charlie

The rain falls harder, hitting the car like a shower of rocks. Abby turns on the engine, then the headlights, does a slow U-turn and points us towards Chinchilla. We drive away, abandoning the woman in the ditch; we leave the baby to die.