‘Once you’re changed I’ll fix you something to eat. We can have a quiet evening. Get your head straight.’

‘Righto.’ He stayed where he was. ‘Sorry, darl. I’m not sure I’ll spring back from this one too quick.’

‘You got the job done, love. That’s it now, for a while.’

He nodded. ‘Hope so.’

‘Gotta take the rough with the smooth. Right?’

‘Right.’ He didn’t look convinced. ‘I’ll take a shower.’

Mandy sat back down and tried to get settled again. Her gin had gone warm. She was still aware of Joe sitting out on his deck, smoking a cigarette. The curve of his spine, his neck, the back of his head.

She looked away. Joe Green had never caught her eye before. He had a knockout wife and a second baby on the way, for God’s sake. What was with her today? She stood, picked up her glass and took a quick glance in Joe’s direction. Louisa stared back at her. Brown, sad eyes. She was sitting at Joe’s side, telling him something, and he was looking out at the yard, watching Isla run around in the trees.

Mandy’s face burned up. Her skin flushed hot, then cold. She nodded at Louisa and turned her back, self-conscious in her crumpled sundress as she walked away. She felt caught out. Exposed. Which was daft, but she felt it all the same.

8

Sydney, 1967

‘What’s howdy?’

‘It means hello in America.’ Joe patted the seat beside him. ‘Come and sit down. Watch the film with me till your mum gets home.’

Isla climbed onto the couch and sat in his lap. ‘Howdy,’ she said.

‘Howdy, partner.’

She knelt on his thigh and ran her hands over his scalp. Since he’d had this buzzcut, she wanted to stroke his head whenever she could get close enough. She wasn’t gentle about it. He moved his whisky tumbler so she couldn’t knock it and tipped his head forward for her. Sometimes with Isla you had to give in and let her have her way. The same was true of her mother, although he didn’t give in to her half as often. Isla was less complicated. She thought he was God on earth, and he was putty in her grubby little hands.

‘Why don’t they say hello?’

‘Different places have different words, love. They think hello sounds funny.’

She moved her hands across his skull. ‘Is that why Mummy talks funny?’

‘She doesn’t talk funny.’ He smiled to himself. The head massage was helping, now she’d calmed it down a bit. He let his eyes close. ‘Your mum’s from England, like me.’

Isla climbed down from the couch. ‘Pop to the loo,’ she said, in a half decent English accent. She spread her hands and held her arms out. ‘I think I’ll just pop to the loo.’

He laughed. ‘That’s not bad.’

‘Goodness me.’ She lifted her chin, flared her nostrils. ‘What a ghastly candelabra.’

‘A ghastly what?’

She was bent double, laughing at herself. It was that time of night when she’d be in stitches one minute and crying her heart out the next. He shouldn’t have let her stay up so late. But she was good company. Nobody else made him laugh these days.