Treading Water

By Angie Oakley

Sixteen year-old Lucy Connelly is haunted by a suicide she witnesses while rowing on the Brisbane River. It compounds the despair she has battled since her parents’ ugly divorce ten years earlier. She doesn’t know that Paul Waldron - the older cousin of her best friend Beth - knows Luke, the boy who jumped, and feels he should have done more for him, although he has his hands full dealing with the dislocation in his own family. Pretty and popular at her exclusive private school, Lucy hides the shame of her dark thoughts. Beth tries to help, but Lucy’s problems need serious attention not forthcoming from her mother Sandy, struggling after the divorce, or her wealthy developer father David, busy with his new family. Unlikely refuge comes from old Ted who lives next door, and was a stretcher-bearer in WW1. Maybe he has one more casualty to carry to safety. Paul has glimpsed her despair, but is preoccupied with his own messy family: his dad Jack – the result of a wartime romance - moves the family back and forth between England and Australia, after discovering his own father, Bill Howard, is living in western Queensland. But young cousin Nick Howard bitterly resents these interlopers, and will exact his revenge. As well, Paul’s mother Helene’s untimely death still haunts the family. Treading Water traces in parallel the lives of Lucy and Paul slowly drawn together over fifteen years as they try to find their place of peace from turbulent childhoods

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadOnTime BV
• Release date: Sep 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781742845449

Angie Oakley

I’m in my sixties, and have lived all over the world, latterly in Australia, and have recently moved from Brisbane to the little beach town of Noosa Heads. To have reached this time of life in relatively good health is a gift and I’m using it to do the things I love: writing, reading, thinking, talking, eating, drinking and laughing, and more recently, singing and blogging: http://spryandretiring.wordpress.com Treading Water is my second novel, and my first foray into self-publishing. An English teacher for forty years, I have felt privileged to be involved in young people’s lives during their formative years. Look out for the lost ones, a wise headmaster once said, and that is the impetus for my book. The despair young people feel when their families are split must be handled with great love and care, and often is. But if children feel abandoned, it has consequences throughout their lives. I feel very strongly about it and wanted bring it to the reader through the eyes of the gentle and fragile Lucy. Other strands important to me intertwine with Lucy’s story: youth suicide, and the more sinister and sadly topical problem of child abuse, sometimes institutional. Also topical this year is war remembrance, something that has always moved me, never more so than when visiting Anzac Cove with students only a couple of years younger than the boys buried beneath. There is still much to be learned from these selfless men, something Lucy discovers for herself.

Book preview

1

Lucy – May 1992

The late sun falls across the wide sweep of water. It slicks a gold rippling skin on the dark river whose depths are undisturbed by the slender hull skimming over it. Lucy narrows her eyes in the glare and concentrates on Danni Weller’s shoulders, pink where the sun has caught them and glistening with sweat as they work the oars to the bark of their cox.

Why does she glance up? All their training forbids it. Does the black shadow on the bridge nudge itself into her vision? All she knows is that the falling doll, its arms flailing, imprints itself inside her eyelids. A shocked grunt heaves through her, rocking the skiff, and sloshing the muddy Brisbane river water over her feet,

Miss Taylor, cycling along the towpath, turns her head. Lucy follows her gaze and sees a knot of people break into a straggling run towards the bridge. Then she is carried swiftly round a bend in the river and the bridge disappears from view.

Come to shore, girls! At the teacher’s command the rhythm falters. With a clumsy scrape of oars the rowers shunt toward her.

I think there’s been an accident. Kids - messing around no doubt. Her voice is brisk as her glance sweeps across the nine upturned faces. Lucy turns away.

Hold on! she calls. Hold tight, wake coming.

Lucy looks downriver for one of the city ferries, but sees instead a small police launch cutting its way past them, prow raked upward in its haste. The next few minutes are spent steadying their frail craft as it bucks on the heavy rolls of water.

The hoisting, hosing and stowing of the boat take their attention for the next half hour, as the teacher makes light of the episode. Lucy, shivering despite her tracksuit, waves her goodbyes.

Not getting a lift with the Watsons? Miss Taylor looks at her, pen poised above the roll.

No…I’m, I’m meeting my dad in the city. I can walk there. She glances eastward toward the next bridge. I’ve told Emma.

A small frown appears on the teacher’s tanned face. Do you have a note?

Lucy smiles her teacher-pleasing smile. Er…no, sorry Miss Taylor, Mum forgot. Can I bring it tomorrow?

After a beat of indecision, the teacher nods. She is searching Lucy’s face, so Lucy pulls her tired eyes to attention and widens the smile.

OK. Don’t forget.

I won’t. Lucy swings her bag on to her shoulder with exaggerated jauntiness.

She crosses the main city bridge as evening begins to leach the blue warmth from the sky. At the first intersection she feels the sudden urgency of lighted cars headed for home as the amber light blinks her across to a phone booth.

Mum, it’s me. I’m getting dropped at Beth’s if that’s OK.

How will you get home?

Um…I might stay the night…we have a History project. She shifts impatiently in the small space, while her mother processes the difficulties.

What about your uniform?

It’s fine. I’ll just iron it, and I can get tuck shop tomorrow.

Well, all right. You know I’ve got yoga. I’ll be finished by nine if you need me to come and get you.

Thanks Mum, bye. They always say, love you as a parting, but today no more words will come.

She turns away from the centre and heads west, back along the river road, weaving between impassive pedestrians towards the bridge that looms white in the gathering darkness. Before she sets foot on it, she stops and peers over and there on the shore, as the evening traffic streams over the top, a small group of men cluster protectively around a dark woollen blanket. Her fixed stare feels like a violation and she looks away, blinking back a sudden blur of tears.

Head down, she steps back into the flow of people that hurry her towards the station. Back at the intersection she turns towards the main shopping precinct, now shuttered and forbidding. But she cannot go just home and leave the little black shroud to the gathering dark. She has looked up and witnessed someone’s last terrible moment and now she must wait. The neon of Burger Station beckons her in and five minutes later she is perched uncomfortably on a plastic stool, staring at her reflection in the dark window. She looks down at her burger, already congealing in its cardboard casing. Two mouthfuls turn hunger to nausea, and drive her back out into the cooling night, where she stands in the wind until her face is numb.

Shouldering her bag with a sigh, she walks to the bus stop, and half an hour later she is home. After closing the door quietly, she stops and listens in the stillness. Relieved, she switches on the hall light, and picks up the phone.

Hey Beth, it’s me.

Hey! How was rowing?

Yeah, good. She hesitates. Good.

You OK?

Course. I just need you to say that I was at your house if my mum asks. I went into the city…I told Taylor I was meeting my dad.

And were you?

No. I just, I dunno, felt like a burger. Shouldn’t have bothered, it was shit. Lucy’s voice fades tiredly.

Hmm, Beth says. Was it Maccas?

"No, Burger Station."

"Well that’s where you went wrong, you dope! You compromised on excellence."

Her friend’s impression of their History teacher has found the ghost of a smile, and given Lucy the next thing to say.

Yup, and I’m about to compromise on a bit more excellence. I haven’t started the History study thingy yet.

I’ve had a look at it, or at least my mum has. She says we should go to the State Library. What about Friday?

Sounds good. Lucy cannot keep the weariness from her voice.

Straight after school?

OK, and don’t forget I was at yours if Mum asks.

No probs. Bye!

Lucy punches in another number, as she walks around lighting the lamps. At the first word of her father’s recorded message, she clicks off, and heads for the kitchen where she stands irresolute in the chill slice of light from the fridge. She wants the smell and crunch of toast but can’t be bothered, reaching instead for one of last night’s pancakes. One cold flabby mouthful sends it to the bin, and sends her hurrying to the shower in the hope that the warm water will wash some of the dark and lonely river away.

__________________

Paul Waldron hears the ringing when he is half way down the stairs. With a sigh of irritation he turns back to the flat, wrestling briefly with the key in the old lock before striding quickly across the large room.

Paul, Paul…that you?

Oh hi, Dad. I’m just on my way out, can I phone you later?

Yes, sure but …I just, well there’s a bit of sad news.

Paul is suddenly still. Is Mollie all right?

Yes, yes, we’re all fine. Sophie keeps asking when you’re coming home. Paul’s little sister’s antics are often the mainstay of these long distance calls, providing a bridge from his life in London, which is mostly populated with people his dad doesn’t know.

Paul, remember Mark, Mark Vance.

Yeah, Mark - at Saviours. He pauses. Something happen?

Yes, son. I’m sorry to have to tell you… he was in an accident. He was killed.

Paul sits down quickly on the sofa. No way. What happened?

He fell, from a bridge. They couldn’t revive him.

A bridge! Where?

Here in Brisbane, the Grey Street Bridge.

How...what was he doing?

Not sure. Some daredevil stunt, I think. That’s what Penn reckons.

Penn, your headmaster? What’s he got to do with it?

Oh, it was he told me. Mark was at his last school apparently. I was in his office for something and there on his desk was Mark’s picture, one of those school ones. And it…well, it was a funeral booklet. The counsellor had sent it to Penn.

What? Mark hated school. Couldn’t they even find a decent picture of him?

Oh. His dad sounds surprised. Well I suppose it was all so sudden.

Are you going to the funeral?

No, I would have, but I didn’t find out in time. It was last week.

There is a silence. Paul, Paul…are you still there?

Yes, yes Dad. I’m here. It’s…I’m stunned. He has to catch his breath.

I thought you’d want to know.

Of course. It’s awful. He’s my age – younger. He’s still twenty four.

I know. Such a waste.

His mum. How’s…how’s she taking it?

I don’t know. Perhaps I should go and see her.

After all this time? She won’t even remember us. Paul wants to stop talking, and looks for a benign exit. Perhaps write her a letter, or a card.

That’s a good idea. Shall I say from both of us? Jack asks.

If you like. What about from the whole family, and if you send me the address I might write as well.

All right. I’ll do it tonight. Sorry to give you such a shock. You were on your way out, were you?

Yes, just for a drink. It can wait.

Will you still go? Stupid question. Paul knows his father hates the telephone, and they often finish one of these conversations feeling more, not less distant from one another. It’s always a bit of a relief when his step-mum Mollie picks up.

Maybe. Look, I’ll call you at the weekend. Thanks for phoning, Dad. Give my love to Mollie and Soph.

Will do. They send theirs, bye.

OK, bye.

Very slowly Paul replaces the receiver. Mark, Mark Vance…dead! He sits for a long time staring at a frayed patch of carpet waiting for the slow return of his breath. It brings, not relief, but the realisation that this is a phone call he has been dreading - for ten, no eleven years.

2

Paul – February 1981

It is a steamy morning, and they are late, screeching in through the large white gates and up the driveway, only to be told that this entrance is for visitors, and students must use the side entrance, about a hundred metres down the road.

Can’t I just drop him? It’s his first day, and he’s got all this gear! His dad leans across him to bellow out of the window at the boy in the navy blazer.

Sorry, sir. The boy glances over his shoulder at the monogrammed glass doors gleaming in the fierce sunlight. He looks hot in the woollen jacket and reddens with the unpleasantness of his task.

OK. Jack sighs, and wheels around.

Paul tries a small smile of complicity with the other boy but receives a hard stare in return.

Bloody hell! His dad is agitated. He still has to drive across the city to his new job as Head of Maths at the Marist Brothers’ College. Paul had asked if he could go to school there with him, only to be told that his grandfather Bill Howard was adamant that Paul should follow the generations of Howard boys who have come from the country to board at St Saviours, the more prestigious north Brisbane school.

There, Dad! Paul spots the sign, and Jack swerves into the inside lane, acknowledging another driver’s urgent beeping with a remorseful wave.

Sorry, mate!

It is a phrase he repeats as he deposits Paul, a solitary figure in his oversized navy blazer at the edge of the empty quadrangle.

Do you want me to come in with you?

Paul shakes his head. It’s fine. I’ll ask someone.

I’ll be as early as I can tonight. You can wait here, if that’s OK.

Sure. He looks at his dad. I’ve got a book.

Jack smiles encouragingly. See if you can find Nick. He’ll look after you.

Paul nods even though he knows differently. There will be no friendly welcome from his cousin Nick, two years older and not especially pleased when Paul and his dad showed up at the family property eight years ago to meet – for the first time - Jack’s father Bill. His dad doesn’t get it, but looking after the new boy will not be high on Nick Howard’s agenda.

So that’s bad enough, but as Paul approaches the building, he sees immediately that he is in the wrong clothes. The boys jostling for space along the verandas between classes are a tangle of grey shirts, shorts and long socks, which clearly are the daily working garb. Hastily he removes his jacket, but the bright newness of his white shirt singles him out. He takes a deep breath and walks up to a boy who is lagging behind the rest of the clattering crew.

Er, excuse me.

The boy stares at him.

Where will I find the Year Ten classes…please?

A couple of others turn round, and the boy starts to grin for his audience.

"Well, you might find them, let’s see…in the Year Ten classrooms! Or then again…"

He relishes his moment. "You maight find them up your arse!"

This witticism sends him chortling along the corridor with his friends, leaving Paul alone, and aware that the accent he’d picked up at his English school isn’t going down too well with the locals.

When Mr Stuart, the Year Ten coordinator, finally brings him to the door of a classroom, Paul is disconcerted to see the little pack of jokers already grinning in anticipation at the back of the room.

Boys, this is Paul Waldron. He’s joining us from England, so don’t give him too much of a hard time. It’s not his fault they can’t play cricket! The teacher’s ruddy face creases in an expectant grin as the boys laugh obediently. Teacher jokes are lame.

All yours, Miss Ashley. He prods Paul in the back. The young dark-haired teacher smiles encouragingly.

Hello, Paul. Welcome to Ten Burke. As she indicates the only free seat, she scans the room as if looking for somewhere else to put him.

Would you like to sit there, next to Mark?

Woohoo! Up close to Marky!

The cackling is silenced by her quick rebuke. Calling out in class. Not acceptable, Mr Hensley.

Not every teacher is as vigilant as the diminutive Miss Ashley. As the class lurches untidily from room to room, it becomes clear that Mark is the main butt of the class’s derision and mockery, and as a new kid with a posh accent, Paul can see it won’t take much for him to be consigned to a similar fate. The third lesson is called Shop and since Paul is in the formal school uniform, which is, inappropriate attire, laddie. Get it fixed by next week or you’ll be in detention, he must sit at the side while the apron-clad boys wield chisels and hammers under the eagle eye of old Jock Mackintosh. After that he is able to slip out to lunch on his own, and attach himself unobtrusively to a pair of quiet boys who don’t speak to him, but don’t tell him to piss off either.

Paul feels a pang of remorse as he hears the catcalling behind him, and glimpses Mark’s anxious little face half smiling as if to join in the joke. But he knows these schools, and it’s every man for himself. In any case he has to race back to find his blazer, left on the back of the chair in the Woodwork room, which is now, to his dismay, locked and deserted.

Shit! The detour has him scrambling to his last class to find that the Maths teacher’s insistence on alphabetical seating places him once more, next to Mark; but at least they are at the back of the class. The arrangement also loosens the boys from their little knots of spite, and the thin bamboo stick on the desk keeps them all silent, heads bent over their books.

Can I borrow your rubber? Mark whispers. Foley gives you the cuts if you make a mistake.

Paul glances at the other boy’s notebook, which seems to him beyond the help of a rubber. The numbers are cramped and smudged, and the page looks worn out, curling at the edges as if in despair. Mark crouches uncomfortably over it, driving the rubber back and forth to so little avail, that Paul suddenly leans across, turns the page and shoves his own book next to the clean one.

Here, start again. Just copy these two. Paul has already completed the exercises.

Wow, you’re neat. Mark picks up his blunt stub of a pencil.

Use this. Paul passes over one of his newly sharpened ones.

Thanks! The other boy smiles so joyfully, Paul is reminded of his little sister Sophie when she receives a small treat.

Oi! The teacher bellows from the board. Vance! Talking again! No wonder you can’t even add up!

Paul sees the pink shame creep into the other boy’s cheek.

Er…it was me. I asked him something, Paul finds himself saying. Sorry sir.

Huh. Foley’s voice curls in disdain. New are you? Well you’ll soon find out that our friend Mr Vance is not exactly the fount of all knowledge.

There is a murmur of mirth from the class but it is short-lived.

Quiet! Foley thunders. Anything you don’t finish is extra homework.

Keep the pencil, Paul says as he shoulders his bag and moves rapidly away from the other boy. He has no intention of becoming embroiled with this kid. He has his own problems, one of which is the need to find lost property before it closes. As he rounds the corner he sees, leaning over the student services desk, a familiar figure - tall and burly and angrily brandishing a blue blazer that is clearly too small for him.

No, it’s not mine. My mother must have…donated it or something.

He turns in time for Paul to hear, Stupid bitch, muttered under his breath, and for him to see the recognition dawn on the broad handsome face of his cousin Nick.

Oh, hi Nick. Paul attempts a cheery greeting. You found my blazer. Thanks.

It found me, the older boy growls, holding it out for Paul to see and jabbing his finger at the nametape. "See that? Nicholas Howard. If you’re going to take the hand-me-downs, change the fucking name!" With a hard shove he rams the blazer against Paul’s chest and walks off without another word.

"So is it your blazer?" The elderly lady at the student desk peers over her glasses. Paul nods, feeling the heat rise in his face, but the lady just gives a kindly shake of her head.

Well, better get the right name in it, dearie, saves a lot of trouble.

3

Lucy – February 1981

Lucy would like Beth to come over and play one morning - and you of course. The tall ash blonde in the oatmeal linen - chic and expensive, not crumpled, environmentally friendly kind of linen - doesn’t know Eleanor’s name. No surprises. This isn’t one of the mums who exchange a friendly nod and a chat, while waiting for their children at the gate of the kindergarten. She’s usually in a hurry, and strides in looking as if she’s just come from a glamorous lunch, whereas Eleanor’s hippie skirts and faded jeans signal a different social round. When not in front of a class, she can be found at the supermarket or the park, or trawling through the recycled timber at the Big Red Shed. She knows oatmeal linen’s name. It’s Sandy. But she does not imagine them becoming friends.

Oh. She hesitates a moment. I’ll ask Beth.

I think you’ll find it’s a fait accompli. Sandy smiles down from the height of her elegant bone stilettos, and Eleanor can’t find a reason not to nod meekly.

Er…did you have a day in mind?

I’m afraid it has to be a Thursday. Lucy has ballet, and French school. You can’t start these things too early.

Eleanor thinks you can, but refrains from saying so. Actually, Thursday is usually Grandma’s day - that’s Neal’s mother.

Oh. Sandy frowns.

Please Mummy, say yes!

Eleanor turns to find her small daughter tugging at her hand and grinning.

We want to play Barbies!

And I want to show Beth the picture of our puppy! We’re going to call her Sukie. The two little girls dissolve into excited laughter at this apparently thrilling piece of information.

She’s a shi tzu. We get her from the breeders in about five weeks. Sandy adds.

Eleanor has nothing to contribute to this conversation, but her daughter is so dazzled by it, that she says, Would you like me to ask Grandma if she can come another day?

Oh, yes, Mummy, she won’t mind. She and her new friend clap their hands with joyful silliness.

All right. Eleanor frowns. I’ll see if… She begins to fumble in her bag for a pen.

Here’s our address. Sandy presents a glossy cream card. Sandra Sinclair: Renaissance Interiors is embossed in black. This Thursday then. Ten o’clock all right for you?

She leans down, placing a manicured hand on her arm to seal the arrangement. It’s my day off, and I like to have quality time with Lucy. A glance at her small gold watch has her reaching for her daughter’s hand with a rapid darting movement. Come along Lucy, we’ll be late for Yamaha.

Eleanor watches them hurry to a low-slung foreign-looking car. Lucy moves to the rear while the boot is opened for her to put her bag in, before stepping carefully into the back. As they pull away, her excited face appears above the wound-down window.

Bye Beth! she yells, her white blond hair flapping in the wind, before she disappears behind the dark glass.

After a quick scan of her wardrobe, Eleanor pulls out her new white shirt and her best jeans. What does it matter? It’s a play and a coffee she thinks to herself. Nevertheless she smudges on some eye shadow and lipstick before shooing Beth into the car.

Sandy, of course, wears not a scrap of make-up.

Do come in. Slender and tall, even in gold slides that reveal slim brown ankles between them and her crisp white pants, Sandy ushers her through to a terra cotta terrace overlooking a blue swimming pool. Eleanor’s not sure which is more gorgeous – the elegant house, or its hostess, whose streaked blond hair is caught in a loose chignon which, with seeming carelessness, accentuates her fine profile, and wide blue eyes.

Oh, can we go for a swim? Beth cries, turning to her mother.

Lucy glances at Sandy. Is it too early Mummy?

We didn’t bring your togs, Eleanor intervenes quickly. We can go to the pool later, if you like.

Beth can have a pair of mine, Lucy suggests cautiously and after a moment Sandy nods.

All right, off you go.

The girls disappear into a giggling huddle in Lucy’s bedroom, and Sandy turns her attention to the shiny chrome and black coffee machine on the spotless kitchen bench.

Morning tea is on the bench! she calls to the girls splashing and chattering through various aquatic feats in their blue playground. Make sure you dry off first.

It’s a lovely house, Eleanor says as the smell of fresh coffee wafts through to the terrace.

Sandy pauses a moment to gaze around. Yes, it works, but it’s getting a complete renovation. I have people coming next week.

You’re kidding! Eleanor can’t help herself. It’s lovely and … classical. The lines and proportions or something, and those tiles and plates and things. She waves her hand towards the interior. They’re exquisite!

She sees a flush of colour rise into Sandy’s golden skin. Oh yes. I hunted those down, designed some myself. Suddenly she is animated, and strides quickly through the house, returning with a small ceramic plate, clearly old but still vivid with blues and reds.

I found this oh, years ago. She smiles. When I was backpacking in Italy. She runs her thumb over the patterning in a caressing movement, and Eleanor notices that her hands, while pink-frosted at the tips, are sinewy and strong looking. And I had these tiles made. She points to the floor, which has brilliant little squares set in the terra cotta. She bends to the floor, tracing her fingers around the pattern.

Eleanor leans over and nods. I don’t understand. Will you move all these?

Well the next look is minimalism - clean and white. Sort of New York loft meets… dentist’s surgery. Her smile turns rueful.

But it’s your home.

Sandy shrugs. "Yes. But David brings clients home all the time, and we need to be able to showcase the look they want. And you have to be on to the next thing, before everyone else starts putting Tuscan villas, as he calls them, on their little blocks in suburbia."

Eleanor leans back on the ample cushions softly piled on the wide seat artfully built into a corner of the terrace. "But it’s so comfortable, like Vogue Living, only liveable."

I know. I still love it. Maybe we’ll move instead, but… a small frown creases the cornflower eyes. The girls are settled here, and Lucy loves the kindy. I wouldn’t want to go too far.

Suddenly they become aware of the silence, and both look guiltily towards the pool, now empty. Glancing behind her, Eleanor sees them, wet heads bent together, two towel-wrapped figures intent on discussing the merits of kiwi fruit over melon, which both pronounce yuk but which, at Lucy’s insistence, they eat anyway.

It’s good for us, full of vitamins.

Where? Beth holds up the orange slice, I can’t see any…oops. As it slips out of her hand and on to the polished timber floor they stare at each other in horror and then start giggling again. Lucy jumps off the stool, and runs round the bench to where the kitchen towel is stored.

Sorry Mummy. It slipped.

That’s OK, darling. Sandy looks at Eleanor. Don’t worry, it has a special sealant on it.

She glances at the clock on the wall. Are you in a hurry? Would you like to stay for some lunch? Nothing special, I’m afraid, just what’s in the fridge.

Sandy is already opening one of the huge stainless steel doors, revealing an interior that resembles an Italian deli.

It is after two by the time they leave. I have to pick Tom up from school, Eleanor says, more reluctantly than she would have imagined that morning. But can I help you clean up? Plates and wine glasses on the bench, and a colourful patchwork of books of Italian ceramics littering the low stone table, show the shape of their afternoon.

Oh no, it’s fine, Sandy says. Lucy will help me.

As they go through to the front door, she hands her the togs that Beth had borrowed, now dried and folded. Would Beth like to keep these? They don’t fit Lucy any more, and they’re hardly worn.

Eleanor notices the label: Kidz, an expensive boutique in Clayfield. It is true that Lucy is already showing signs of being tall and leggy like her mother while Beth is rounder and smaller.

Thank you. That’s very kind. But don’t you have young cousins or anything?

All in Melbourne. She smiles - conspiratorially this time. With their weather, it’s gumboots all the way.

Designer gumboots, I hope!

Sandy laughs, Oh yes, of course!

Was that charity? Should I offer to pay? Eleanor wonders as she drives towards Tom’s school. It would have been awkward to refuse the gift, so she shrugs the thought away.

They want us to come over for dinner, Eleanor says to Neal as they sit on the veranda with a glass of wine in the lull between seeing to the children and seeing to the dishes. Soon, before they start the renovations.

I thought you didn’t like her.

I suppose I was kind of… intimidated. She’s always so perfect. But she was OK really, and Lucy’s lovely.

What does he do?

Some hot shot architect, got his own company I think.

Neal leans forward. Oh, which one?

His name is Connelly, David Connelly. She uses her maiden name for the interior stuff.

Not Connelly - Scott?

Eleanor glances up. Not sure, maybe.

Connelly - Scott! That’s serious money. They just got the new Park Hotel, and there’s one down the coast, worth a fortune. He grins at her. We’re moving up in the world.

By seven o’clock the following Saturday night, the children are bathed and fed, and Eleanor is leaning into the mirror spiking her eyelashes with a mascara wand.

I feel bad, asking Jack to come over. They’re only just settling in to Brisbane, Neal says to her reflection.

Don’t. He says he doesn’t mind. And I really want the kids to get to know him. They love having an English cousin out here.

Well, I hope he and Mollie have done the right thing. Paul was doing so well at that posh English school. And now they’ve packed up everything and left - again.

I know.

Eleanor has married Neal and taken on his Australian life, but Jack hasn’t found it as easy to settle. He has dragged his family back and forth between hemispheres looking for somewhere to call home. They grew up as close cousins in England, but Jack’s life took a tragic turn, when his first wife Helene was killed by a drunk driver, leaving him to look after four-year-old Paul. Not long after her death he’d taken Paul to Daylesford, the Victorian country town where he had been offered a job. Ran away Eleanor had thought at the time, but that was where he met Mollie, who helped him patch up his threadbare life and, so far as Eleanor can see, rescued Paul from a sad life with his grief-stricken dad. Then about eight years ago, Jack discovered that the father he’d never known, was still alive and living on a Queensland property, so Australia had yet another call on him. Eleanor has watched the handsome, personable cousin she adored, age visibly under the weight of all his responsibilities, and her heart goes out to him. But if tragedy has brought someone from her own family closer to her, it’s an ill wind she’ll accept.

There is a knock on the door and the shouts of greeting filter down the corridor to the bedroom.

That sounds like… Eleanor puts her head round the door. Paul! You came. I thought it would just be your dad.

Well, I had a special invitation. He glances at Beth, rosy and shiny-haired in her soft pink pyjamas.

What do you mean?

I phoned him, the little girl pipes up. I wanted him to play UNO with us.

What! Neal expostulates. How did you get the number?

Tom told me. She grins. From the book.

Oh Jack, mate. Neal looks embarrassed. I’m so sorry. He turns to his little daughter. Beth! That was very naughty. Paul has important things to do. Homework, and….

It’s fine Neal, honestly. Paul smiles at Beth. "Just one game."

Yes. She runs over to the sofa and picks up the cards. A big one.

By the time they return after midnight, the house is dark except for the small light that Jack is reading by. Paul is stretched out on the sofa fast asleep.

Sorry, we’re a bit late, Eleanor whispers as they tiptoe in. Big dinner, lots of booze. Fancy a brandy?

Jack yawns. Better not. Mollie’s there on her own with Sophie. She’s not really used to the old house yet. What about you, good night?

Yes, lovely. Fantastic food. She’s amazing - the perfect wife, eh Neal?

Neal nods. Yeah, great set-up, the house is really something.

Eleanor turns to Jack. How were the kids? Did they behave?

They were fine. Paul kicked the footy with Tom for ages, wore him out. He grins ruefully at Paul’s sleeping form. Beth was the umpire.

Bossy boots! Eleanor laughs.

Not at all. She’s a clever little thing, wouldn’t shut up till Paul explained the offside rule.

Oh well, you never know when that will come in handy. Eleanor reaches in her bag and brings out a twenty. Here, for Paul. I insist.

Eleanor and Neal sit outside in the still night with a pot of tea; common sense has prevailed over the brandy, but they are still drunkenly expansive.

Talk about the beautiful people, Eleanor remarks. They were all so tanned and bejewelled and… rich!

I know. That developer Robert what’s-‘is-name - loaded!

Yes but are they happy? Eleanor rolls her eyes dramatically.

Well they should be, Neal says. They’ve got the lot - beautiful house, beautiful kids, loads of cash.

And the food was great.

Except for the scallops. David reckoned they were rubbery.

"I know, talk about picky. I’d have told him