A fly thumped against the small window and dropped to the floor. The room was stifling. Steve started feeling separate from his body, like he might not be in charge of himself. He didn’t know what he’d do next. He locked eyes with the baby: a steady gaze, wise and sad. Something in Steve shifted then, standing in that small room in Ivanhoe, although he barely felt it. The slight loosening of a knot.

‘I’m not going to take him,’ he said. ‘You get to keep the boy.’ The old bloke didn’t react. Steve didn’t know if he’d said what he thought he’d said. ‘I’m going to leave him here with you. I won’t take him. But his sister’s coming with me, mate. Foster family’s lined up already.’ He went into automatic. ‘She’ll be looked after. She’ll get a good education. Good start in life.’

The old man started to cry then, his face stretched long and trembling. ‘Can I see her?’

‘Best you don’t. Stay here and keep the baby quiet. Or else I’ll have to take him.’

Steve heard the old man wailing as he shut the door behind him. White, hard sunlight after the dark of the house. The dog lifted its head and got up on its haunches, barked at him until he was off the property.

He shook his head at Harry as he got into the truck.

‘No baby in there,’ he told him. His hand trembled on the ignition. He wanted to cry himself, now he was out of there, away from the old man and his despair, his grief. He had no reason to cry next to that, but still his throat ached and his eyes threatened to well up. He was a lily-livered, poisonous bastard. He couldn’t even look at the girl in the back.

‘I changed my mind,’ she said, swinging round in her seat. ‘I want Grandpa.’

‘Your grandpa says to be a good girl.’ He said it without turning. ‘He says to sit down nice and quiet and don’t muck about.’

He reversed back a few yards and a great cloud of dust rose up around them. The old bloke was out on the verandah as he pulled away, then he was chasing the truck. Steve crunched through the gears, put his foot down and drove blind through the dust till he’d gone.

4

Sydney, 1967

Mandy had taken her eye off of Isla for one minute. Two, maximum. She’d been right there in the wet sand, a few feet away, digging with her hands. Mandy stood beside the little hole Isla had dug; the damp heaps of sand beside it. The hole was full of water. A huge great wave had come and covered the beach, wetting the tip of Mandy’s towel. Which was when she’d looked up and found Isla gone.

She searched up and down the beach; strode off in one direction shouting Isla’s name, then went back the way she came and did the same thing. She must have missed her. She kept calling. There were too many little girls in blue swimmers on this beach. All of them looked familiar from a distance and became strangers as she drew closer. Panic seized her. Her legs became heavy and slow. She stood on the shingle and faced out to the water, calling again, her voice lost to the boom and crash of the waves. The heat of the day, the laughter and movement, became nauseating; the gulls sounded shrill and full of dread. She waded into the sea and shouted, ‘Isla! Isla!’