We’d chatted for a few minutes about the family who’d moved into the terrace next door. The woman had just given birth to twins and Marieke was enjoying playing the role of friendly neighbour, ordering the bewildered husband around, writing out shopping lists and shouting advice to him over the communal front fence. Apparently he seemed shell-shocked. He walked around wearing a worried frown and said very little when Marieke appeared on his doorstep with homemade herbal teas and a raft of criticisms. Knowing Marieke, I suspected the man’s recalcitrance had less to do with his abrupt induction into fatherhood and more to do with working out how he could avoid her attentions in the future. I didn’t voice this opinion aloud but maybe Marieke had an inkling because she said, ‘Your mother swore an infusion of mint tea from the garden with a few drops of clove helped her regain her strength after she gave birth. She was back home with you within the week. She didn’t like staying on the mainland. Said the hospital was full of people from the cities and one of them might steal her purse while she slept. I suppose you’ve been to see the house?’

‘No,’ I said, shortly.

There was silence on the other end of the phone line. A dog began to bark distantly, the sound conjuring the whirr of sprinklers and wide blue skies and Sydney’s lingering summer heat seemingly trapped in the courtyard behind Marieke’s house, necessitating the watering of delicate ferns and vulnerable herbs well into March.

‘Did you forget the address?’ Marieke said. ‘It’s number 6, Schilderweg –’

‘I remember,’ I interrupted.

‘Well, then?’ Marieke sounded annoyed. ‘I thought the whole reason for your going there was to find closure. You can’t just spend your whole life avoiding what happened. If you wanted to do that, you might as well have stayed here.’

‘I’m not avoiding anything,’ I snapped. ‘I’m here for the dress, remember? I don’t need to go searching for spooks just to bring up the past. You’re the one who can’t let it go. What’s it to you if I can’t remember some lullaby my parents supposedly sang me? It’s probably all nonsense. Your memory isn’t infallible. Maybe you dreamed it up or saw it in a television show years ago. You have no proof.’

‘What about the shoes?’ Marieke said. ‘The shoes from the beach. Your mother kept them for years in an old chest in the attic. After they died I looked for the chest, but I couldn’t find it, it wasn’t in your parents’ things.’