‘That’s not as easy as it sounds.’

He hitches his shorts at the back. ‘You won’t like it.’

She nods. ‘Tell me anyway.’

‘I remember that summer better than you might think,’ he says. ‘First year on me own since Emily passed. I was between jobs. I didn’t know how to fill the time.’

‘Sorry to hear that,’ she says.

‘It was bloody hot. No rain for months. I was out here a lot, keeping myself busy with the plants and the veggies. I saw all the comings and goings.’ He nods at his veggie patch, the trowel and gardening gloves set down on the grass. ‘Your mother took you back to England for a long while. Your dad was here on his own. A man gets lonely. I can understand that.’ He pauses. ‘I know it’s not easy to hear this kind of thing.’

‘I know my dad’s no angel, Doug.’

He smiles uncomfortably. ‘Joe was round at Mandy’s place the minute Steve was out of sight. Steve was away with work for days at a time back then. Took him a while to figure out what was going on.’

‘Did he leave her?’

He pulls at a protruding twig in the hedge. ‘Last time I saw Steve Mallory he was packing up his truck to leave. I saw Mandy standing there trying to talk him out of it. She made a bit of a scene.’ He nods up the street. ‘And he drove off without her. Left her behind.’

‘Are you sure? He didn’t come back for her?’

‘I didn’t see Steve again,’ he says. ‘You sure you want to hear the rest?’

She nods and looks away, at the bare shrubs along the edge of his lawn where he’s cut his roses and hydrangeas back. In a bar somewhere, she orders another drink. Ice knocks against the glass.

‘Mandy was here on her own for a while after Steve left. I saw your dad coming and going out of her house. They didn’t bother hiding it. Kissing on the verandah, that sort of thing.’ His face colours and he looks down at the grass. ‘It was getting to the end of the summer by then. Still hot as hell. Mandy liked to hang her laundry out in the sun. Sometimes she’d be out the front, giving the plants a bit of water. She always waved and said hello. Then one day I didn’t see her. I looked out for her like always but she didn’t come out into the yard. Same the next day. And then I saw your dad coming out of her back door.’

He falls quiet. The afternoon stops. Isla thinks she might throw up, here on Doug’s lawn, among his clippings and gardening tools.

‘I was in the backyard,’ Doug says, ‘looking across to the Mallories’ place, and I saw him leave Mandy’s house. He locked her back door behind him and went into his house. He didn’t see me. I went and knocked on Mandy’s door later on but no one answered.’