Mandy stood wordlessly, hot and panicked, her mind racing. Andrea’s bike lay sideways on the footpath and the street was quiet, bright with roses, azaleas, bottlebrush.

‘I don’t know where your mum got that idea.’

‘She saw him packing his truck. And he took that black baby and all,’ Andrea said.

Mandy heard Joe shift his feet behind her. She stepped out onto the verandah into the dense heat. ‘Maybe I’ll come and have a word with your mum. Is she home?’

‘She’s at the doctor’s. The baby’s got colic.’ Andrea looked up at Mandy. ‘You got a lemonade?’

Mandy shook her head. She felt tears coming and she blinked them back. ‘Not today, sweetheart.’

‘I’ll tell Mum you’re coming on Saturday.’ Andrea ran down the steps and picked up her bike. ‘I’m getting a kitten,’ she yelled, throwing her leg over the crossbar. ‘You can see it at the party.’

Mandy watched Andrea go. She kept her back to Joe and looked up and down Bay Street, the flat normality of it. The tiles were hot under her house shoes. She waved at Doug, out on his front lawn with a watering can. He raised a hand and turned his back.

‘Thought he went to get milk,’ Joe said, from inside the house.

She didn’t look at him. ‘He left me. I didn’t want to say.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know? When did he go?’

‘About a week ago.’

He pushed the door open wider. ‘Come back inside. You look hot.’

She shook her head.

‘I think you should tell me what happened.’

‘He packed his truck and left. What else is there to say?’

‘You can’t stand out there all day,’ he said.

She turned to face him then. His eyes were red-rimmed. ‘Why don’t you just go home, Joe?’

‘I want to know where Steve went.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m interested.’ He moved back slightly, out of the light. ‘I’m disappointed I won’t get to see him today. You got my hopes up.’

‘It’s a place called Marlo, in Victoria. His family own a beach cabin down there.’ She wiped sweat from her face and the tears came unexpectedly. She cried into her hands.

‘What about the baby?’

‘What about him?’

‘Has he taken him down to – where was it?’

‘Marlo.’ She wiped her nose on her wrist.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘So nobody knows where the kid came from. Fewer questions. Is that the idea?’

‘Think so.’ The street was perfectly still, the sun close overhead. She couldn’t stand here much longer. ‘Will you go now?’

‘That’s not very friendly.’

‘You’ve outstayed your welcome, Joe. Can’t you see that?’

From the corner of her eye she saw Doug turn towards her. The red of his watering can, the blue of his sun hat. She waved at him, smiling and crying. She hated the thought of Doug seeing her like this. The mess she’d got herself in. But she was running out of ideas.

‘I’ll scream,’ she said, still waving. ‘If you don’t get out of my house, I’ll scream.’