‘He can’t help the way he is,’ she said.

‘You can write him with the new address, when we’re settled.’

She wouldn’t see her dad again. She had a feeling about it, that he was lost to her. When she thought of him she thought of his hands, the way he’d cracked crayfish shells for her with his thumbs, lifting out the white pipes of meat.

‘I don’t like to think of him on his own,’ she said.

‘It’s his choice, Mandy. Let the old bastard stew on it.’

She pedalled William’s legs and he looked up at her, uncertain, a whine in his throat. She lifted him up. It’s all right, she said to him, in her head. It’s only Steve, he’s not as bad as he sounds. The boy clung to her and stamped his feet in her lap.

‘You’ll have to trust me again some time,’ she said.

‘Don’t push me, Amanda. You’d be wise not to push me.’ He moved past her into the hall. She thought he’d moved away when she heard his voice, softer than before. ‘Told you you’d make a good mum.’

She let that go. The TV came on in the lounge room and she heard Abigail Walker out the front, shouting down the street for her kids to come inside for their tea. Mandy stood, shunted the baby up her hip and walked with him through to the kitchen. It was getting dark in there, the yard was shady, and she couldn’t think how to fill the evening, what to do with herself. She made up a bottle and took William out to sit on the striped garden chair under the passionfruit vine. A light came on in Joe’s kitchen and his words returned from earlier: he’s not yours. You need to give him back. She knew it was true. And at the same time, it was unthinkable. It horrified her now, to think she might have let him go.

For the first time in days she wanted a cigarette. She sat back in the chair and watched the boy drink his milk down, his fleshy limbs, the tightly packed life in him. When had she fallen for this child? It must have crept up on her, but she felt it in that moment like a shove from behind, unexpected and alarming.

She stood, held William tight against her and took him back inside the house.

36

Sydney, 1967

Mandy walked up and down Bridge Street with her shopping bag on her shoulder. It was still early. She’d picked up eggs and milk and she had enough of everything else at home to last a day or two. If she wasn’t careful she’d have no reason to go out tomorrow. The house was an uneasy place to be right now. She’d got in the habit of walking to the shops and back to avoid Steve’s company while William slept. Every day she stretched it out by another ten minutes.

She stood in the line outside the bakery for a while, but the shop was too hot once she got inside and she realised she couldn’t stomach a pie, after all. In the end she joined the smaller line in the milk bar on the corner and got herself a malted shake. She wasn’t sure she wanted that either, but she sat down in a booth and watched a group of boys playing pinball, glad of the noise and movement. The laughter. It was good to hear laughter.