‘I wanted to name him myself. I always wanted a son called William.’

‘He’s not your son!’

‘I know that.’ He kissed him again. ‘Might be the closest I get, but.’

She shook her head at him but he was looking at the baby, smiling in that absorbed way. ‘You need to slow down.’

The cicadas reached them through the window. She had the sense again, just briefly, of a rope unravelling. The rapid slip into a place beyond reason. She looked away.

‘Why don’t you go back to bed, Mand? I can manage now.’

She left him there, rocking the baby, looking out at the yard as the sun lit the sky.

31

New South Wales, 1997

‘This was all prime real estate, twenty-odd years ago.’ Scott changes gear and overtakes a truck, gliding past it noiselessly and pulling back in again. ‘Back in the seventies, it cost more to live out this way than it would have to live in Darlinghurst.’

Isla looks out the window of Scott’s low-slung Honda. A disused railway line runs alongside the road. The tracks are overgrown with grass and strewn with empty bottles. An Aboriginal man sits on the platform of what must once have been a train station, holding a bottle in a brown paper bag.

‘Thanks for the ride,’ she says.

Scott taps his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat of the song on the radio. ‘Couldn’t have you driving all the way out here on your own.’

‘You mean you don’t want me driving your car.’

‘There is that.’ He reaches for the dial on the radio and turns it off. ‘And I wanted to see you again, before you go back to the dark side.’

‘Sorry I’ve been bad at keeping in touch. It’s hard, with the time difference, and—’

‘Are you still drinking?’

She turns to him, surprised. ‘I’ve been on the wagon a couple of months.’

He nods. ‘How’s that going?’

‘Great.’ She squirms in the soft leather of his car seat. ‘Why d’you ask?’

‘You were pretty wild before you left.’

‘I was twenty-five.’

‘You were off the scale, Isla. I was there, some of the time. Nobody could keep up with you.’

‘I know.’

‘I thought you might crash and burn in London.’

She puts her hands through the coarse mess of her hair. ‘I did, in the end.’

He overtakes again, checking the mirror and holding his speed within the limit. Her sensible, careful brother, who studied hard and married young, who can remember his twenties. Who can remember her twenties, more to the point.

‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘It became a problem. The drink.’

‘It’s good to hear you say that.’

‘I’ve got it under control. As much as you can, you know.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I’m an alcoholic.’

He looks across at her and she looks away. She has never said those words out loud before. The day is too bright, the sky too clear. The car is too smooth and silent. She sinks down into the seat and wipes her palms on her jeans.