She sighs. He’s right. She knows he didn’t mean for anyone to die. But it still doesn’t make it okay.

He must see a thread of something like acquiescence weave its way into her facial expression, because he presses on: ‘I feel terrible, Luce. And I’m not saying they deserve it, and I’m not saying I’m not sorry, I’m just saying … I’m just saying, it’s not black and white.’ He’s panting slightly. ‘I feel terrible,’ he whispers. ‘Please, Lucy.’ But it seems to her that his eyes don’t quite match his voice. The look he’s giving her isn’t quite pleading; it’s more expectant than that. He’s so obviously waiting for her to agree with him, for her to tell him it’s somehow okay. His Luce, his partner in crime.

‘Isn’t it black and white, though, Jem?’ she says quietly. ‘Isn’t it black and white this time? You once told me there’s got to be a cut-off point somewhere.’

She sees disappointment and then anger flare in his eyes. ‘Says the woman who happily wrings the necks of baby mutton-birds,’ he mutters.

She’s not even angry, not even outraged as she says: ‘No. You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to equate me with you.’ Right there, right then, she knows it’s over. Dead horse flogged. And she feels defeated, deflated.

‘Lucy, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’m—’

But she’s already gone.

Lucy starts stripping before she gets to the damp little beach. Makes a scarecrow of the banksia that catches her shirt. Soaks up a puddle with her undies. The dab of a moon lights the clouds colourless silver; the bay is their refracted duplicate.

Dead horse flogged, she thinks as she strides out into the water. But is it somehow equivalent?

Is it?

Of course it isn’t.

But why isn’t it?

Don’t think about it.

Don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it.

Instead, she dives into the black and relishes the way the cold whumps the air from her lungs. She rolls over, floats on her back. The moonlit surface is a pliant, icy membrane rippling about her, masking the dark beneath. Drifting, waiting. She holds herself as still as she can. She can’t tell if she’s hearing or feeling the boom and tremor of the swell that does, and doesn’t, remind her of Harry’s heartbeat and voice, vibrating through his chest and into her cheek, palm, fingertips as she lay there, listening to him talk about a past girlfriend, whose too-sincere love of David Bowie ended the relationship.

‘She took to calling me Major Tom in the bedroom.’

‘Ironically?’

‘Nope.’ A twitching smile.

Lucy laughed and then all of a sudden she was crying again and Harry asked her why.

A gasp escapes her lips as an arm curls around her ankle, wends its way up her leg, trails back along her calf, the sole of her foot, the tip of the toe that’s pointing towards the isthmus. It’s as if the octopus is trying to tell her where it’s headed. It slips away from her. Floating on her back, she sculls her hands, ushering herself after it.