She was crying again. ‘I don’t want to come back. Not if you’re angry with me.’

‘I’m not angry.’ He hung his head between his knees and tried to say it like he meant it. ‘I’m not angry, Lou. I know things have been bad between us.’

‘Will you stop drinking?’

Jesus Christ, she wanted him to roll over and beg. He stretched the fingers of his broken hand, curled them as far as he could and stretched them again. ‘I’ll cut down,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it a go.’

‘We both miss you,’ Louisa said. ‘England doesn’t feel like home. It’s freezing cold and Isla hates it.’

‘I’m pleased to hear that.’

‘We need to stop fighting.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m scared that we can’t.’

He put his head on his knee and tried not to think of the way she’d planned it all, the note she’d left him while he was at work. Coming home to find them gone.

‘We can,’ he said. ‘There’s a baby on the way, Lou. We’re a family.’

She was still crying. He held the receiver to his ear, sorry and guilty and at the same time, empty. Sometimes, he thought, love and guilt felt the same.

34

Sydney, 1997

The wooden chair is wet under Isla’s jeans as she sits down with her coffee. The sky is grey, the deck damp with recent rain. She slept badly. Every night since the trip to Ropes Crossing she’s woken in the early hours, full of fear. She tells herself, as she lies awake, that she’s scared for her dad, not of him. She fights the creep of doubt. When she can’t rest she walks through the house, looking for him, this man who might have killed. When she finds him passed out on the couch she thinks, it’s not possible. Surely not.

She can hear the breakfast news from the radio in the kitchen: Tasmania has decriminalised homosexuality. There is talk of a referendum on whether Australia will become a republic. She blows on her coffee. In the kitchen, the radio snaps off. The flick of a lighter. A glass bottle meets a hard surface.

‘I thought I heard you out here,’ her dad says, stepping out onto the deck.

He pulls up a chair and puts his mug down on the table. It’s not yet seven-thirty but his eyes are foggy, unfocused. Drunk.

‘My boss wants me back at work,’ she says. She keeps her eyes on the Hills Hoist where her costume is hanging after yesterday’s swim. ‘He left a message on the machine, asking when I’ll be back.’

Joe reaches for the ashtray and rests his cigarette on the edge. He sits back in his chair. ‘It’s been good to have you here. Shame your mother didn’t stick around.’ There’s a slur in his voice. ‘Just you and me, in the end.’

She can’t look at him. The gulls are flying inland from the beach. ‘I need to ask you something, Dad.’