‘No, though Bette just said something about tomorrow, but I don’t know if –’

‘Oh yes, of course. Wednesday isn’t until tomorrow.’

‘Hey, how do you know about all this, anyway?’ I said.

‘Well, today’s Tuesday, so that makes tomorrow –’

‘No, how do you know about Wednesday coffee?’

‘Oh, I just know everything. Me and my mum, we’re friends of the family,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I said suspiciously. ‘Leonie said that. Hessel doesn’t seem to think so.’

Basil paused for a moment and looked back at me with his head to the side. ‘My mum and your mum went to the same school, that’s all. Hey look,’ he said, and he did another bell-kick.

‘You have a lot of energy,’ I said when he’d landed safely.

‘So why do you need reception?’ he asked. ‘You got a boyfriend?’

‘Oh, um. Yes. Back in Sydney.’

‘He must be missing you – distance and the heart and all that. Must think you don’t love him if you chose to come out here to spend your holidays with me instead of hanging out with him.’

I tried not to hesitate, but in the gap where I was at a loss for the next thing to say, Basil turned to me, sharply.

‘He doesn’t know something,’ he said. ‘You don’t love him anymore! That’s it, you’re breaking up with him, and he doesn’t know. You’re about to dump him over the phone. Oh that’s low.’

I tried, hopelessly, ‘No, there’s nothing, we just –’

‘Why? Is he mean?’

‘No, he’s –’ I had to remind myself that he was joking. ‘I can’t –’

‘You love someone else. But Anna, we’ve only just met!’ Jokes.

‘No, I just need some damn reception so I can sort some things out!’

‘Oh, that’s alright,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to tell me your trouble-in-paradise secrets if I can withhold mine.’

‘Oh god!’ I said, exasperated and relieved. ‘Sounds like a deal!’

‘So let’s go find some magic reception so we can dump your boyfriend.’

13

My parents had only found out about Nassim last week. And even then it wasn’t my idea. Last week, saying goodbye as usual on the corner of the street, far away from my house and its looking windows, Nassim had said, ‘Anna, I don’t want to keep skulking. I don’t get it and it’s making me feel a bit shit.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it kind of makes me feel like you’re ashamed or something.’

‘I’m not!’ I said. ‘Of course I’m not. Why would I be?’

‘Well, what then?’

He didn’t get it. And how could he? How could he know that early on I had learned to protect the things I most cared about from the unpredictable weather of my mother? I had told him about my mother, but I hadn’t told him anything about that. Not anything. I wasn’t lying to him, exactly – I had vowed not to do that. It was more that I just kept hoping, against the evidence of my own eyes, my own history, that there was nothing to tell.