‘Do you want anything from the supermarket?’

‘Can I have a Magnum?’

Images of the dead haunt me. Was that Valentin Zynda I saw, leaving Caltex in his ancient station wagon driving towards the house he would later die trying to defend? Or do I imagine him? Could the soon-to-die really look no different from anyone else? Surely some sign should have marked them out?

We parked and Caleb slouched down the street, always a couple of steps behind me, a habit in the children of teachers. Heat crouched on corrugated roofs like a fiend. Moods were sour. Children cried at their mothers and were sighed at in return. The Brunton Bakery window was filled with heavy, unfashionable pastry. Its ‘Victoria’s best vanilla slice’ award was several years out of date. Next door, the butcher’s sausages and chops were slowly cooking through the glazing. In the deli, olives and honeycomb, crackers and sundried tomatoes sweated until they resembled limp plastic replicas of themselves. Antique stores displayed twentieth-century rings near the chipped crockery they’d scratched while worn by washing-up nanas now sleeping in the cemetery, and big boots worn down at the heel by farmers who milked cows no more. Restaurants, designed whimsically by chefs exhausted by Brunswick Street or Federation Square, featured strange fusions like Indian pizza.

The basic people there, the real Bruntonians, knew each other and knew who each other’s grandparents were, and who had dated who back in high school and who had returned to Brunton disappointed (and sometimes pregnant) after trying to make something better of themselves in the Big Smoke (older residents smiled, knowing there was nothing better than this). Ladies crocheted nylon tea cosies for Country Women’s Association stalls and shared rival photos of their grandchildren on Facebook. No one could avoid being influenced by the weather. From the days when monks sat copying holy texts until their hands were so cold the agony was beyond penance, this never changed.

‘Hey, great set last night!’ From across the road, Jeannie Tillman raised a boldly striped umbrella, then quickly shaded her face again. The only other teacher at my school, she was a tall woman, with a high bun and a general air of efficiency.

Sunlight sparked off the road, blinding. I shielded my eyes. I’d seen Jeannie in the audience at the Brunton Hotel.

‘Thanks!’

Jeannie checked both ways, every movement as practised as if pupils might notice, then crossed the road. ‘Hello, Caleb.’

‘Hello.’ Caleb gave her more than a grunt – they were buddies.

‘Phoebe, one day you have to play for the kids,’ Jeannie said. ‘They’ll love it!’

I laughed. ‘“Twinkle twinkle little star” is more their thing.’ Together, we approached the BuyCheap. ‘I’m buying Caleb a Magnum. Want one, Jeannie?’

‘No, I want to hurry home once I get my camera. I left it at school. See you later, okay?’

‘Look after yourself.’

‘And you.’

The BuyCheap Grocer, a crumbling supermarket where everything was overpriced and close to its use-by date, was as hot inside as out. Tendrils of heat pushed through the gaps around windows and got tangled in the ancient air conditioner. Doors and floors sizzled more than a Roman hot room. Here, milk soured, bread dried, fruit wilted. Ingrid, the storekeeper, greeted me while Caleb, who hated the place, waited outside. A round-bellied woman in a tight black uniform, Ingrid had opinions about everyone. Hopefully I could keep my visit brief.