‘He was a lawyer. Not as powerful as Genevieve. He died ten years ago.’

‘I never really knew my father. Mum raised us on her own. I kept her with me until I didn’t have a choice.’

‘What happened?’

He ran a hand over his jaw. ‘A couple of things. This isn’t the first time she called the police. Last time, she reported that someone stole her sheep.’

‘You had sheep?’

‘Years ago. It wasn’t a successful farm. The land was sold off bit by bit.’

He pulled his computer from the retrieved bag and flicked through his photos, finding a younger Shirley. She’d looked like Jack, only female and pretty, incongruous as that sounded. The same wavy hair, longer and held back from her face with a scarf that I imagined was bright, like I imagined her lipstick bright, around the edges of her bright smile. She had her hands on her hips beneath a cinched-in waist.

‘She was beautiful,’ I said.

‘She was. She was so vibrant and so proud of her poetry. Later, what she most feared was being forgotten. Until she began to forget, herself.’

Would Caleb ever sound regretful, about me? ‘She has you. And the fire’s out.’

Jack looked sceptical. ‘Dante’s innermost Hell is ice cold.’

He’d read Dante. Amazing how a relationship could be rekindled by such a simple fact, the way mouth-to-mouth revived someone drowning.

23

23

LAVERNA | Goddess of Thievery

Laverna was originally from the Underworld. Thieves prayed to her in silence to keep their good reputation intact. She was sometimes portrayed as a body without a head.

SUNDAY

Jack slept in my bed. I watched his chest rising, falling. His body was so attractive to me. Not a young man’s body. He wasn’t Stephen, who would always be young to me. Grey hairs curled around Jack’s nipples. His skin was loose, although his muscles were taut and fit. I wasn’t young either. Mature, Jack was more difficult to reach, more desirable, he knew the risks of loving someone, of offering yourself so another human being could value or reject you. He knew the joy of tenderness and the pain of separation and could bear to reach for me, as if I were someone worth reaching for. He was a man, the counterpoint to me.