It hurt Mandy more than she wanted to let on, that Lou had taken off to England without a thought for her. It was only by chance she’d seen them out the window that morning. She hadn’t been able to say goodbye, not properly, in that hot taxi with the meter running. The thought of it made her eyes fill and she dug at them with her knuckles, told herself to buck up for God’s sake. She had no right feeling this way about somebody else’s kid. She knew what Steve would say: a child of our own will keep you busy. Which was true enough.

She stared out at the yard. She needed to trim the long grass over by the eucalyptus. Water the plants. There wasn’t much laundry but it wouldn’t hurt to wash the towels and dishcloths again, in the name of hygiene. She wondered if she was the only woman on earth to consider starting a family just to generate more laundry. The only woman to feel a growing panic at the idea, to reach for another cigarette.

‘Where are you, Mand?’

She pushed the cigarette back into the packet, her hands clumsy with shock. ‘What are you doing home?’ She just managed to put the packet back in the drawer and push it shut before Steve came in. ‘It’s not even lunchtime.’

Steve sat down at the table with his boots on and rubbed his eyes. ‘Ray wants me to drive back out to Ivanhoe.’

‘What, now? Weren’t you there a few weeks back?’

‘I was.’

He was staring out the window at nothing, looking hot and tired. She ran the tap and put a glass of water on the table for him. When he didn’t look up, she pulled out the chair beside him and sat down.

‘Ray should’ve told you if there was more than one child needed removing out that way. Save you making two trips.’

‘He did.’

‘Did he?’

He swallowed half the water down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I was meant to remove another child last time I was there. A little boy.’

She pulled the chair up closer. ‘You were meant to take two kiddies the last time?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Was there trouble?’

He was looking right at her but his eyes were blank. She heard his stomach churn the water around.

‘No,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t any trouble that time.’

‘Then why didn’t you—?’

‘There was no trouble because I didn’t take him. I went into the house and saw him there with his grandpa. And I couldn’t do it. So I left without him.’

‘What do you mean, you couldn’t do it?’

‘I mean, I couldn’t do it. He was just a baby, Mandy. It never sits right with me to take a baby. He looked to me like he was perfectly fine right where he was.’ He pulled his boots off as he spoke, left them lying on their sides on the clean lino. ‘And the place he’d end up, if I took him, would likely be a whole lot worse.’