She was very proud of you. ‘My son the engineer!’ Such rotten luck. When I was young and I saw a car for the first time—I was a country girl like your mother—I was as frightened of it as my horse was. I had every right to be. She gripped my hand so tightly as we waited for the ambulance to come… see, it’s still bruised. I’ll see what’s happening outside.

She exits. Silence.

PETER: Lots of flowers; she must have been well liked.

FRANCIS: Her workmates. She worked in the same shoe factory for years and all her boss could give her was a brand new pair of shoes. In our neighbourhood flowers mean death. Mum said she had only ever saved money for herself twice: the first time for her trousseau, the second for her funeral, so she could go off ‘like a real swell’.

Silence.

PETER: Do you still want to return to Hobart with me tomorrow?

FRANCIS nods.

But what about the house and things?

FRANCIS: It was rented. The landlord wants it cleaned up and empty by Tuesday. I told Mrs Witcombe that if she cleaned it up she could have anything she wanted.

PETER: But don’t you want to keep a few mementos? You can’t cut loose entirely.

FRANCIS: I’ve got a few photographs; that’s all I want. [Looking around the room] What a life, eh? Struggle hard, marry a bastard, struggle hard, have an ungrateful son, earn enough to live in a dump. Second-hand furniture, concrete backyard, and on the walls Saint Teresa, and facing her a picture of the nineteen thirty Collingwood football team. If Collingwood won we had fish and chips; if they lost we didn’t eat. [Moving over to it] Signed by all of them: Collier, Coventry… She plucked up all her courage to go down to training one night and got all of the team to sign it. I was with her, crimson with embarrassment. She was so happy you would have thought she had had an audience with the Pope.

PETER: Why don’t you take it with you?

FRANCIS: Mrs Witcombe’s daughter has had her eye on it for years. Mum promised it to her.

PETER: You’ll regret it if you don’t take a few things to remind you.

FRANCIS: One should forget the past. Do you know why I never invited you here?

PETER shakes his head.

Because I was too ashamed.

SCENE TWO

A room in the asylum, evening. MAC sits at a table. WILLIAM watches him. There is a manual skills test on the table. A recording of AYRE’s voice plays. MAC doesn’t really listen to it. AYRE’s voice is slow and deliberate, as if trying to make herself understood.