And this—this—was what made his reaction to those breasts so infuriating, you know? They weren’t natural. They weren’t real. They weren’t me. And there he was, lying flat on his back, zealously worshipping a pre-packaged fantasy of faux femininity—a by-product of human impact, or ingenuity I suppose. I don’t know. He’s such a hypocrite sometimes. It felt like everything about my cancer, everything that had happened to my body enabled him to take the soft option, had made his life—his politics, his sexuality—easier. It’s riddled with bullshit. He’s riddled with bullshit. But then, he’s also so … Jem.

He’s the man with the crown of birds.

The day Jem and I first met was one of those rare summer days when no sea breeze roars in from the north-east. It was late afternoon and I’d gone for a walk along the beach at Eaglehawk Neck. This was before I’d moved there from Taranna. The clouds were like a sheet of gauze across the sky, the bay, mother-of-pearl. I’d reached the wharf and wandered out to the end of the jetty, splattered black and white with ink and shit, to see if the people perched on upturned buckets or deckchairs with fishing lines extended were having any luck.

‘Nah, but once the sun goes down there’ll be squid,’ I was told.

As I dawdled back along the jetty, I watched Jem reverse his tinny into the water, get out of his car and start to wiggle the boat from the trailer.

‘Hey, can you give me a hand?’ he asked. It was a moment before I realised he was talking to me.

‘Sure,’ I replied.

‘If I push the boat towards you, can you grab that rope there?’ He pointed to the rope tied to the bow of the boat.

‘No worries,’ I said. He walked the boat down the trailer and swivelled the bow in my direction. He was still holding it steady when it was close enough for me to lean out and grab the rope.

‘Great! Can you loop it around that pylon?’

I did as he asked.

‘Cheers for that.’ He grinned.

Later, he told me that he didn’t need any help at all. He just wanted an excuse to talk to me. ‘You looked so pretty, and so lost,’ he’d said.

As he jogged from where he’d parked his car back to the boat, I was walking from the jetty.

‘Hey,’ he said, coming to a stop as he was about to pass me. ‘This might be a bit forward of me, but do you want to come out for a bit? There were a heap of dolphins just around the headland earlier. Might still be about. I’ve got a spare lifey.’