‘You should wear it,’ Louisa said. ‘It’s elegant.’

Mandy smiled and took the watch from Louisa. ‘That’s the problem,’ she said. ‘I’m not the elegant sort.’ She buckled the watch, keeping it loose so it didn’t pinch.

Louisa sat back and lifted her hair, pulling it into a comb. The soft hair at the nape of her neck was wet, stuck to her skin.

‘What did you say about a down payment, Lou?’

Isla bolted past them, straight through the kitchen into the lounge room. ‘Isla, don’t run!’ Louisa called. ‘Slow down!’

Isla jumped onto the couch to look out the window. Mandy took a swallow of gin and waited.

‘Steve’s back!’ Isla held onto the back of the couch and sprang up and down, her backside in the air. ‘He’s back, Mandy!’

Mandy stood at the window and looked out. Steve had parked up already, and the truck was filthy, as always. Mud-caked wheels; brick-red dust at the fenders. The windscreen was covered in muck but for the small double-arc of the wipers.

Steve turned the engine off and slumped over the steering wheel, resting his head on the bridge of his hands.

Mandy’s stomach turned. ‘Here we go,’ she said, as he lifted his head. She stepped away from the window, afraid to catch his eye.

‘Here we go!’ Isla leapt off the couch and turned a pirouette. ‘Here we go!’

‘Isla, stop jumping around.’ Louisa stood in the doorway with Isla’s sandals in one hand. ‘We should get going.’

‘No rush. Don’t feel you have to leave.’

‘No, we’ll be off. Steve will want a bit of quiet, if he’s been away.’

Mandy nodded and stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray on the coffee table. She could see from here, he wasn’t going to keep it together on account of company. ‘I hope he’s not too cut up, this time.’

Louisa made a sympathetic face but didn’t reply. She was miles away. Troubles of her own.

‘It’s not an easy job,’ Mandy said. ‘He takes it hard.’

Louisa walked through to the kitchen with Isla, making for the back door. She didn’t want to meet Steve out the front, most likely. It was best avoided, this whole business. Mandy would have avoided it herself, given the chance.

5

Sydney, 1967

Isla jumped from Mandy’s back door into the yard, clearing the gap between the paving stones. She was glad she was going home. Steve’s truck was dirty again because he was a policeman and he had a dirty job. He had told Isla this. A dirty rotten job but some bugger’s gotta do it. It got him cranky like Isla had never seen.

Mummy was standing at the rear of the house, talking to Mandy about grown-up stuff. Isla knew they would forget she was there if she stayed quiet. She prodded at the space between the paving stones with the tip of the hose and squatted down to see if any creatures appeared. They hid in the cracks and you had to budge them out. She had disturbed a spider once which made Mandy scream and say two bad words.