Afterwards, Chanel will serve coffee and chocolates. I’ll do my best to master myself but I might be too overwhelmed to help. Fanta will wipe her eyes, saying, ‘How good is Australia!’ Bram will leave the house.

Everything is clear up to that point. Then comes Post-Ivy. And what I’ve discovered today is that Post-Ivy isn’t a creeper-clad paling, it’s a blank. I’ve tried to imagine it but I can’t. Which leaves me with a terrible possibility: what if my future disappears along with Ivy? It’s not a rational idea but it’s making me so anxious that I’ve even considered messaging Bram: ‘Please put a stop to everything NOW.’ Then I’ll get Ivy, and we’ll drive away fast. She’ll direct me to a house by a mountain lake, and the two of us will live there forever.

Dalma just brought me a supersize raspberry brioche and my third latte for the morning. Drinking my coffee, I thought, Man up, Lyle! With all the concentration I could summon, I had another shot at Post-Ivy. But it happened again: as soon as I tried to picture the future, my mind slipped backwards, into the past.

Like this: When we woke up yesterday, Chanel said, ‘Ivy might like to go for a drive this morning.’ I was appalled. There was still time for Ivy to come out with something freakish. The first time I held you. No way did I want to be trapped in a car with her. ‘It’s an extremely challenging time for me,’ I told Chanel.

‘I’ll be there.’

‘But it’s boxercise!’

‘I can skip one Sunday.’ She squeezed my hand.

Preparations for her Joyful Occasion had enlivened Ivy in recent weeks. But we found her slumped and dejected when we went downstairs. She was colourless, her flesh octopusy. Anyone could see that the weather was getting to her. This is Melbourne. It was fifty-three degrees outside. Overnight the wind had salted the yard with a fine pink dust. But we’ve all had to adapt to our new-normal summers. What would it be like if we let mere weather keep us from getting on with life?

Chanel went into Ivy’s room to help her get dressed and jolly her along. I watched ads for home-security on my phone. There was one where the voiceover suddenly went creepy and quiet, and I heard Chanel say, ‘… massive power outrage.’

‘What were you thinking?’ I asked when she came into the kitchen. ‘Why call it that?’

‘Call what what?’

‘The Amendment – you called it a power outrage.’

Chanel gave me a look. ‘Power outage,’ she said. ‘They’re warning that all the air-con will send the grid into meltdown today. I was telling Ivy that we’ll be better off in the car.’ She handed me a tube of Factor 102. ‘Don’t forget.’