Ivy tires easily these days – lethargy is one of her symptoms – but she’s perfectly comfortable. Bram sees to that. Bram is Chanel’s cousin. They’d been close as children, and Bram ended up following us out here. Back home he was considered a tearaway – fast cars, faster girls – but he got through medical school all the same. He went on to specialise here and is a gastroenterologist now. Bram earns big and spends it unwisely. For a while there he owned ‘one leg of a racehorse’, as he liked to say.

Ivy soon came to depend on Bram. Learning of her reluctance to consult a doctor, he encouraged her to summon him whenever she wasn’t well. He’s written prescriptions for her, administered vaccinations, collected specimens, listened to her lungs. He jokes with Ivy, teases her, kisses her hand. It allows Ivy to pretend that he isn’t visiting her in a professional capacity. Bram reports on women who are showing interest in him, and asks Ivy’s opinion of this one or that. He’s small and trim and ugly, topped off with many unstructured curls. The curls are key to his success with women, Ivy says – he tells her that they want to muss them. To show her gratitude to Bram, Ivy has left her eyes to science. Does science want the eyes of an old woman with cataracts? It’s never occurred to Ivy to ask.

Bram recommended the dermatologist who’s treating Chanel for the pale patches that have appeared on her skin. He told us that there were mysterious illnesses out there. ‘Not necessarily anything to worry about,’ Bram said. ‘But new viruses come out of nowhere these days.’ His vagueness was deliberate since it’s unwise to speak directly about the consequences of environmental change. When Sydney moved north for his doctorate, Chanel and I made him promise never to speak of the PFZ but to say the Bush-Cleansing Precinct instead. That’s the approved designation, and it shows that the government cares about our mental health. Who wants to be reminded of a Permanent Fire Zone? We hope Sydney bears in mind that only Green Brigade terrorists say PFZ, and that he could endanger us all if he were to use the term.

I used to enjoy setting out for work – light playing over the owner-occupied homes, surveillance cameras and drought-resistant gravel gardens of Spumante Court, my neighbours heading off in their tall, gleaming cars as if to war, all of us suited up for battle. On a fine spring morning, the drive along the leafy upper reaches of Blue Nun Road was a roll of drums. Eucalypts and flowering shrubs still mark the entrance to the crematorium there, but these days the traffic backs up for blocks at the intersection. Once onto Cold Duck Parade, we inch past the fast-food joints and car dealerships, the discount outlets and service stations. When the sun is out, windscreens intensify the glare. If the smoke is bad, the overhead warnings light up: Wind up Windows. Switch on Recycled Air. Then comes the free-for-all of finding a parking spot within walking distance of the station.