‘No.’ He looked up at her. ‘I never have. Not for a minute.’

‘You like it here?’

‘I love this country. I loved it from the minute we got here. The extremes of it. The heat off the sun; the space between one place and the next. The sky. I’d never seen so much sky.’

‘What about the green English pastures?’ She put on her English accent. ‘The countryside?’

He snorted. ‘None of that where I come from. My England was a cold, crowded sort of place. Everyone on top of each other in concrete boxes. Rats in the gutters. I lived in the bit of England they don’t put on postcards.’

‘You don’t ever want to go back?’

‘No. No, I don’t. I hate England, to tell you the truth. People like me don’t stand a chance over there. They like to keep us in our place. Born poor, die poor.’

She sipped her tea. ‘What if Louisa won’t come back?’

He stood and went to the sink, tipped the rest of his tea down the drain. ‘I can’t think about that, Mandy.’

‘Sorry.’ She shouldn’t have said that. He was staring hopelessly into the sink.

‘I’ve worked so hard for all this,’ he said. ‘Louisa knows how hard I’ve worked to build a life for us here.’

She crushed her cigarette in the ashtray and stood. It was getting late. ‘I’d better go. I need to get Steve’s dinner on.’

‘Right. Of course. Thanks for everything. The cleaning, and—’

‘Don’t mention it.’

He followed her to the door. ‘Thank you for trying to stop her, Mandy.’

‘I think she’s made a mistake.’ She reached out and touched his arm, just above the swelling. They looked at each other in surprise. ‘You been punching walls?’

He held his arm still. ‘You noticed?’

‘’Course I noticed. There’s a hole in the wall, Joe.’ She nodded towards the lounge room, where she’d picked plaster out of the carpet. ‘You should put ice on that hand.’

‘I’ll do that.’ He stared down at his swollen knuckles. ‘I need to watch myself on the drink.’

‘Don’t we all.’ She took her hand away and clamped it under her left arm before she did something else she hadn’t planned to do. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

‘Mandy?’ He followed her out onto the deck. ‘Did you find a savings book?’

‘Yes.’ The yard was in shade. It was later than she’d thought. ‘I did. I put it in the dresser drawer in the lounge room.’

‘Thanks. Where was it?’

‘Under the couch.’ She called out to him over her shoulder as she walked towards her own house. ‘I sucked it out with the vacuum cleaner.’

16

Sydney, 1967

Mandy stood at the back of the house while the kitchen floor dried. It wouldn’t take a minute in this heat, but it was an excuse for a cigarette, a pause. She was getting through the housework too quick these past few days and the afternoons were long and empty. No Isla to distract her, was why. No one to drag her down to the beach once the washing was hung out.