She stood down onto the rug and gripped the duster. It was probably nothing. She pushed the fibres in the rug back and forth with her toe. Almost certainly nothing. She stood back up on the couch. The taxi was still there. Engine running, the boot standing open. She leaned against the window and kept her eye on the driver, who had his window down, elbow jutting out in the sun. He was looking expectantly up at Louisa’s front door.

Louisa came into view, opening up her gate. She was holding a heavy-looking carpet bag, and she had a long, grey coat around her shoulders. A winter coat. It reached her ankles and had a look of gloom to it, like a hearse. She lifted her bag into the boot and threw the coat in after it.

Mandy held onto the curtain rail. She’d told Lou not to do this. She’d spent hours talking her out of it, persuading her to hold her bloody horses. Surely she wasn’t really going through with it?

Louisa turned back up to her house, rushing, and reappeared moments later, leading Isla by the hand towards the car. Isla looked small and neat, in a red and white dress and bright, white socks up to her knees. Her hair was loose down her back, white-blonde at the tips from the sun. She was carrying a little red suitcase.

Mandy dropped her duster. By the time she got out onto her verandah, Isla was climbing into the taxi. ‘Wait! Hold on!’

‘Mandy!’ Isla leaned out of the rear window, her face grave. ‘I’m going in an aeroplane and Daddy isn’t coming.’

‘Are you?’ Mandy reached for Isla’s hand and breathed deeply, in and out. ‘An aeroplane?’

Louisa was writing something down on the back of an envelope, leaning awkwardly on her knee. She had on her short, yellow sundress, patterned with daisies. She looked tired, the light gone from her. ‘My mum’s number,’ she said, holding the envelope out. ‘Take it.’ She took Mandy’s hand and closed her fingers around it. ‘Please, Mandy.’

Mandy looked at the envelope, at the string of numbers reaching lopsidedly along the page. She didn’t want it. She wanted to slow this down; to wind things back a bit.

‘Lou. Are you –? You’re going through with it?’

Louisa nodded. ‘We’re going to the airport.’

‘Did you tell Joe you were leaving?’ Mandy tried not to look at Isla, who was still holding her hand. She couldn’t take the sight of her in that dress, her curls all brushed out and clean. ‘Does he know?’

‘Of course I didn’t tell him.’ Louisa lowered her voice. ‘He wouldn’t have let me take Isla. He’d have stopped me.’

‘Did you try to talk to him?’

‘Yes. It was pointless. I told you it would be pointless.’

The driver leaned across and opened the passenger door. ‘Thought you were in a hurry,’ he said. ‘We should get a move on.’

Mandy gave Isla’s hand a squeeze and turned her back on her. ‘Lou,’ she said. ‘You can’t do this to Joe. This is going to kill him.’