Eileen grinned. Her teeth were unnaturally straight and white. ‘Speaking of abandonment, why is your husband ignoring my calls? I may not have as much money in the bank as the rest of his customers, but my old man had a saying: Every client is the most important client. He sold Holdens for forty-six years and loved every second of it. He would have died right there in the middle of his showroom if the gout hadn’t hit him like it did.’

‘You’d be better off asking Ray that, Eileen. Did he forget to do something at your place?’

‘He never showed up,’ she said. ‘There’s a row of paperbark trees outside the shed that are older than me, and after the winter we’ve had it won’t take much more than a beefy fart to knock them over. Ray said he’d fell them, but I haven’t heard a peep out of him. Now, I’d rather give my business to you, sweetheart, but little Wei who runs the bait shop said he’d do the same job for half. He’s Chinese. They have a better work ethic than us; I’ve always said that.’

‘That’s weird,’ Abby said.

‘What?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing. I thought Ray said he was at your place. We probably just got our wires crossed, that’s all.’

‘Well, either way, tell him to get his arse onto my paperbark trees.’ She opened her Winfields and left the plastic wrapper on the counter for Abby to collect. She put a cigarette to her lips and retrieved a blue lighter from between her breasts. Noticing Abby’s expression, she said, ‘Relax, darl, I’m not gonna light up indoors.’

The streetlights flickered on outside the shopfront as Eileen walked out into the darkening street.

Eileen was the last customer for the day. Bobbi still didn’t show up. Abby spent the rest of her shift slowly closing up. As she drove home over the crest of a hill, she looked out over the island and saw lights on in all the big holiday houses. The lights were on timers, designed to discourage break-ins and squatters. All that endless emptiness spooked her, so she found a song on the radio she could sing along to and turned it up loud.

When she got home, Abby found Ray in the bedroom. He was laying out his clothing for the next day and was regarding the contents of their closet the way an explorer might regard a mysterious tablet etched with a forgotten language.

‘You wear the same thing every day,’ she said, startling him. ‘How can it possibly take you this long?’

‘Oh, you know, dress for the job you want and all that.’

She looked into the closet. It was nearly entirely grey, filled mostly with grey work shirts with Island Care printed on the pockets.