We’re launching into our third attempt, getting Mark to pick out cards, the tension in the room eased, when the twins wake up, screaming. Not sure why kids do that – wake up unhappy with the whole situation of being in a bed. It’s not exactly a hardship. Anyway, you’d think Abby would be pleased to hear them after so long an absence, but she startles at the noise. Maybe she forgot they were in the house. She and Mark both stand up to go to them. I’ve read about this, the uneasy handover of responsibility when a soldier comes back from the front.

Dad lifts the newspaper off the coffee table. Sarah and I have lost the spotlight. We wander out to the backyard.

Sarah wants to play in the sprinkler with Woof so I attach the metal ring to the hose, place it on the lawn and turn it up. I sit in the red canvas butterfly chair in the shade of the porch and close my eyes. I hear Sarah squeal with happiness as she leaps in and out of the flying beads of water, calling Woof back each time he wanders away.

If I could guarantee the month would be like this, I could handle it. I could come to terms with what happened, focus on how it’ll all be when I’m back in Bali. But already I can tell there’ll be ongoing tension between Abby and Mark.

I open my eyes in response to Sarah’s shout for attention. I give her a wave and shut my lids again. I think about Bali.

The kids in Kuta aren’t like Abby’s kids. At sunrise, while Ketut and I sit on the sand talking wave strategy, we regularly see kids cleaning up food scraps and offerings left behind after the ceremony the evening before, and sweeping the sand with homemade brooms. If I’d been told to clean a beach before going to school, or at any other time for that matter, I’d have protested so loud and long I would’ve worn my parents down, and I know Sarah would, too. But Balinese kids don’t do that. They muck around, but they get the job done. They mind little brothers and sisters, cook dinner, sell junk to backpackers.

Sometimes, when they don’t have chores, kids hang around the front of KD, playing with balls they’ve made out of leaves. In fact, given the amount of stuff they have to do, it’s strange how often we see kids hanging out. Whenever I go to Ketut’s house there are kids milling around the front, sitting on the steps. I don’t know why they’re there, but they’re probably asking the same about me. I spend a lot of time at Ketut’s house, which probably annoys his mother, Wayan.

Whenever I see Wayan I ask her how old she is, and every time she gives me a different answer. For a while I thought we had a game going so I played along, making jokes about whatever number she threw my way. One day, while I sat on a wooden stool at the table in her kitchen, having moved aside bananas, incense sticks and woven leaves to make room for my arms on the cool slab, waiting while Ketut gathered his stuff for our bike ride to Sanur, she stopped chopping chicken, seemed genuinely annoyed at me.