She puts the radio on and tunes it to something neutral; a feature about a charity auction. Her dad lights a cigarette and opens the back door. The wind blows his smoke back inside and he holds the door open with his foot.

Princess Diana will be auctioning seventy-nine of her most lavish dresses, the radio announces.

‘Generous of her,’ Joe says. ‘Hope she won’t be left with nothing to wear.’

Isla turns the volume down low and the news of the auction buzzes quietly from the corner by the toaster. She sits at the table with her coffee and thinks of the basement flat in Hackney where she will open the windows and clear out the things Dom left behind. She will look for a new place, somewhere bright and airy. She will replace her lace-up boots.

‘You sure you want to go back to London?’

The question disarms her. She’d expected him to dance around it a while longer. She’d planned to tell him she was conflicted, sorry to leave but also ready.

‘I’m sure,’ she says, instead. ‘It’s where I want to be, for now.’

‘You could find work here. We have television in Australia.’

‘I like London, Dad.’

‘Don’t know why.’

‘You’ve never been to London.’

‘We went through on the train, on the way to Southampton docks. That was enough for me.’ He reaches for the ashtray and the back door slams shut behind him. The wind bends the trees at the rear of the yard.

‘I thought you might decide to stay,’ he says, sitting down.

She blows on her coffee. ‘Maybe I’ll move back one day.’

‘No, you won’t.’ He rests his ankle on his knee. The smoke from his cigarette fills the room. ‘I wanted to say, before you go.’

She waits. He’s visibly shaking. His chest wheezes as he exhales.

‘I’m sorry you got dragged into that business over Mandy,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want that to happen.’

‘You should have told me all of it from the start.’

‘I didn’t want you to know.’ He looks at a place behind her head. ‘Those weeks after Steve left, when Mandy was next door without him. That whole mess.’

‘What whole mess do you mean?’

‘I didn’t take it well, when she lost interest. I should have backed off.’ He taps his cigarette into the ashtray, although no ash has built up. ‘I think I scared her.’

Rain blows hard against the window. He coughs and beats at his chest.

‘Do you think you drove her away? Down to Marlo, I mean. To get away from you?’

He’s pale when he looks at her. His skin is waxy. ‘It’s the last thing I wanted,’ he says.

‘But you did.’

‘I think so.’

She puts her coffee down. It would be easy to console him. It would mend things between them. She shuts her eyes and sees ghost gums at the side of the road, their white bark and clawed branches. Blood on the couch, on the carpet.