She shook her head. The baby stirred and she lifted him up. He was drowsy, half asleep. She kissed his eyes, his cheeks.

‘I’ll help you raise him,’ she said. ‘If you still want that.’

Steve looked at her guardedly. ‘Do you mean that?’

She nodded. ‘We could adopt him, like you said. Stop hiding him away.’

‘I thought you didn’t want the baby. You said it was a crazy idea. He’s not ours, you said.’

‘I want to give you what you want.’ She stepped closer to him. He took the boy from her and rocked him until he settled in against his chest. ‘I know how much you want a family.’

‘He has a mother,’ Steve said. ‘A family of his own who love him.’

‘He’ll have a better life this way, won’t he? Isn’t that what you promised his mother?’

‘I promised that to a lot of people over the years.’

‘This time it’ll be true,’ she said. ‘We don’t know where he’d end up if we let him go, do we? He might get taken to one of the Homes.’

Steve fell quiet and Mandy stood beside him, watching the baby sleep. She had a whisker of a chance, she figured, to hold onto her marriage. She’d said things in the past few minutes that she’d never have said, if not for the shock and regret, the honesty that came with pain. It might have been the scare she needed.

‘I’ll give it my best shot, Steve. If you think you can forgive me.’

He kept his eyes on the baby. ‘You mean the world to me, Amanda. I don’t suppose I can stop feeling that way.’

‘Let me make it up to you, then. Let me try.’

He gave a small nod. She took William back from him. His little face was hot against hers.

‘I’ll murder that bastard if he comes near you again. I’ll kick him all the way back to England. He’ll wish he never came to this country. I’m bloody serious.’

She swayed with the baby in her arms. The yard was falling into darkness. The tea trees were misaligned through the broken pane in the back door.

‘He’ll stay away now. He doesn’t want me really. He wants his wife and child back.’

‘And what about you? Will you stay away from him?’

She nodded, and reached out to him again, took his hand in hers. This time he didn’t move away.

33

Sydney, 1967

Joe sat down on the deck and caught a burst of birdsong from the trees at the end of the yard. A myna bird, he thought, catching sight of one, its black head and brown body. He wasn’t sure how he knew the name. Louisa liked birds, she was always pointing them out. Maybe that was it. Or Isla might have told him; she was clever that way, remembered everything. He loosened his tie. Every thought in his head took him back to his wife and child. Not to mention that baby crying next door. A man could lose his mind.