It seems a certain conversation started because Sister Hodges asked why I couldn’t be brought inside along with the other two. Mum started to cry and she heard Dad ask her to buck up because they were in company. Mrs Hodges’s voice sounded kind and although Ruthy couldn’t hear everything, she heard Dad say he was worried Mum would have another breakdown if she didn’t pull herself together. From what Ruthy could make out, Mum had come to Australia to do nursing, but when she arrived and found her uncle was dead and she had no one else she knew here, she went to stay in these tin housing things called Nissen huts, which Ruthy was going to look up in the library. They were something soldiers lived in, she thought. Mum started her nursing studies at the Royal Adelaide, but it was all too much for her, and she had to drop out. She heard Sister Hodges ask what Glenside was like, and Ruthy was pretty sure she was talking about Glenside mental home.

We looked at each other with our mouths open for a minute. I asked Ruthy if she thought this was true, and she said yes, she thought our mum used to be a bit mental when she was young, and maybe this was why she had Jesus days and head days and stuff like that. Ruthy took my hand and we just sat together until the bell rang. I had no idea what to do with this information, but I thought I might talk to Maynard about it. Although then I thought Mum might not want anyone to know her big secret, so I thought I might not.

The whole nuthouse story, as Ruthy and I referred to it in whispers, made me feel very worried about ever having to spend a night in a driveway again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out more about Mum like this. A couple of weeks later when Mum told us we were going to stay in the car for the evening at Sister Palmer’s, Ruthy and I agreed we would be on our best behaviour so no one would have to go inside and learn more grown-up secret things.

In the Palmers’ driveway I decided to only think about lovely family car stories. Mum and Dad did strange things with us in the car when we went to the drive-in. We didn’t go very often, but every now and again there would be a Disney movie we were allowed to see. Mum would pack dinner for us. Dad was really excellent at parking in exactly the right spot to be able to wind down the window and put the big speaker in it, and then wind it up tight so we could all hear. We always pretended we needed to go to the toilet more than we did, because the toilets were near the big shop that was full of lollies and hot chips, but Mum was never tempted to go in and we would get a smack if we asked more than once.