She finds she is crying. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Scott and Ruby’s.’

She thinks of the taxi, the hot seats, the hurriedly packed suitcase. She feels captured, complicit again in a huge betrayal. ‘I’ll stay here,’ she says.

‘There’s plenty of space at Scott’s.’

‘Is he expecting you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You planned this?’

Louisa looks at her feet. ‘Yes.’

Isla wipes her face with her sleeve. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘I can’t force you.’

‘No, you can’t.’

A bird screeches, a rasping cackle, close to the window. Isla stands, and Louisa steps backwards, flinching.

‘Are you scared of me?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You look scared.’

Louisa picks up the case. ‘It’s just you remind me of your father sometimes.’

She waits for Isla to step aside before she leaves the room.

26

Sydney, 1967

Mandy put her shopping down and took a breather. She wished she’d got the bus instead of walking home under this hard, hot sun. She’d only made it worse for herself. Now she’d have to face Steve with a headache on top of a guilty conscience. The shopping was hardly essential. She could have gone later, once she’d given him a bit of a welcome home. Bit of grub and a cup of tea. That would have been the right thing to do.

‘G’day, Mandy. How’s it going?’

Douglas Blunt was smiling at her from beneath his sun hat, holding a pair of garden shears. She nodded hello. ‘Not too bad,’ she said. ‘Bit hot.’

‘Roasting,’ he agreed, nodding at his veggie patch. ‘Me tomatoes have cooked in their flamin’ skins. Didn’t get ’em under the shadecloth in time.’

He looked like a big baked tomato, she thought, with his hat pulled down low over his hot face. Poor Doug. They’d laid him off at the port and his wife died a few months later. He didn’t know what to do with himself.

‘You should get yourself in the shade, Doug.’

He pointed his shears at her house, where Steve’s truck was parked up on the kerb. ‘Saw Steve drive past a while back.’

She managed a tight smile, which made her head throb. ‘I was hoping he’d be home already. I never know when to expect him.’

‘Haven’t seen Louisa lately.’ He leaned backwards, better to see her under his hat. ‘Or the little girl.’

‘No. Me neither.’

‘Gone back to England, I reckon.’ He snipped a few leaves from his hedge. ‘Didn’t settle.’

‘No. It’s a shame. We were fond of them.’

Doug stepped away from a bottlebrush that shuddered with bees near his shoulder. ‘Lovely girl, Louisa. Have you heard from her?’

‘Can’t say I have.’ She picked up her shopping. ‘Cheerio, then.’

She took two steps and stopped. The sound of a baby’s cry met the pain in her head, sending fingers of shock down her back. She dropped her shopping; heard the eggs crunch as they hit the footpath.

‘That child’s been bawling for hours.’ Doug stared accusingly up the street. ‘Somebody needs to put a plug in it.’