‘I thought we might swim later,’ Louisa says, swinging the bag onto her shoulder. ‘Keep you in the right time zone!’

Isla follows her mother up to the house, stepping over the tiles with the cracks in them, two at a time.

7

Sydney, 1967

Mandy tipped the remains of Louisa’s gin into her own glass, sat down at the table and waited for her hands to stop shaking. It was quiet; just the waves in the distance and the hum of the fridge. This was her favourite time of day, once the sun had moved around to the front of the house and the yard had cooled down a bit. Sometimes you got a cool breeze coming in off the ocean. Hard to enjoy it but, when her husband was crying out on the verandah, refusing to come inside.

She was out of her depth with all this. Nothing she said or did could help him when he came home inconsolable, when he cried at the end of the day. Lately it seemed to bring out the hard-hearted bitch in her; the woman she was trying not to be. The woman only the bottom of the gin glass knew about, who was disappointed her husband couldn’t get on with his job and take the knocks like a man. Who was ashamed of his weakness, God help her. There it was.

Still quiet. She stood and put some fresh ice in her glass. Might as well sit out in the yard for a bit, try to get some pleasure from the afternoon. She put her cigarettes in the pocket of her sundress. A flower had blossomed that morning on the passionfruit vine, and a couple more were opening up. She put her glass down on the paving stones and held the opened flower to her nose, looked into the heart of the blossom, with its gaudy tendrils and its petals flung back. Big, hairy, purple thing it was, when you got close to it. With any luck they’d get fruit this year. They’d had nothing so far, despite a dozen or more flowers on the vine every summer. You don’t get fruit if the flowers don’t pollinate, Louisa had told her. No pollination, no fruit. Which pretty much summed things up around here.

She sat down in the striped garden chair and heard her front door slam. She took a cigarette from the pack and shunted the chair around, turning her back to the house. Her hand shook and it took her three goes to get the thing lit. This was ridiculous. She needed to get a grip.

‘Mandy.’

She didn’t reply. She was facing right into next door’s line of shrubs and her eyes had fixed on Lou’s roses. They were bright and full, opened up from a day in the sun. She couldn’t bring herself to look away.

He was right behind her now. ‘What are you doing out here? I was calling you.’

‘Sorry. Just enjoying the quiet. Nice breeze.’