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‘Robert’s fingering again,’ observed Deborah, and yes, Rosemarie could just make out the tight repetitive patterns of Robert’s hands, moving his fingers to and fro, in and out, making cat’s cradles out of thin air. His subtle,
so
annoying habit. She clicked her tongue and sighed.

‘He’ll wear his fingerprints clean off, I swear,’ she said. ‘Oh, let him go, Deb, don’t say anything.’ They both turned away.

‘What about the stewed apricots, Mum, shall we have those, too?’

The Grounds had gone home, the dishes were done, the children were putting the finishing touches to their presents. Alex hadn’t said much. Now he hung the damp teatowel on the rail and turned to his wife. She lifted her chin to take whatever was coming.
Give me a good ticking-off
, she thought,
I deserve it. After all, it was my fault, too, what happened back then. I wanted you, too. And I so wanted you to carry me off to the other side of the world, to the land of sunshine and plenty.

‘I know it’s late,’ her husband said, ‘but it’s the best time for watering, in this weather. I want to give the fruit trees a good soak.’

‘Oh. All right then.’ Rosemarie’s shoulders sagged as he went out through the laundry. The screen door squeaked and then slammed. She felt like a balloon that had been over-inflated and was now slowly coming down. She could almost hear the soft hiss.

She wandered into the living room, sat down in her usual chair. The children started bringing their presents out, carrying them in a little procession from the bedroom and depositing them fussily around the base of the Christmas tree. The tree was decorated with a mixture of delicate glass ornaments, a fixture of Alex’s childhood Christmases, and the children’s own handmade decorations, yards
and yards of paper chains in alternating red and green, cut-outs of snowflakes and stars and reindeer, and a wonky glittering angel with a tinsel halo perched right at the top. The kids looked at each other and lined up self-consciously in front of the tree, facing her.

‘Would you like us to sing you a Christmas carol, Mum?’ asked Robert importantly.

‘Yes, I would,’ she answered, folding her hands in her lap. ‘Very much.’

‘Where’s Daddy?’ asked Meredith, glancing about.

‘Watering the fruit trees. He’ll be a while.’

‘We’ll just start, then.’ Robert turned slightly to count the others in. ‘One, two, three!’

‘O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,

Come ye, O co-ome ye to Be-eth-lehem…’

They were surprisingly good. Even little Meredith kept up pretty well. James’s voice was particularly pleasant, Rosemarie thought, and his face was just entrancing, relaxed as always and poised to smile. Already so handsome: the crisp dark hair, the blue eyes raised as he sang, the rosy perfect skin.
The good fairy kissed you on the forehead. You’ll have a charmed life and I’ll never need to worry about you.

Robert, on the other hand, had his eyes fixed anxiously on her, the muscles in his skinny neck standing out. He was so tense she could hardly bear to look at him She felt ashamed and made herself smile, then was stricken anew at the way his face lit up.
What a good kid you are. You’re all good kids, really. You try so hard to make me happy, you poor things.
He sang a little louder and Deborah shot him a look, plainly longing to tell him to pipe down. Amazing that she’d let him be in charge for even a moment.

They finished. Robert bowed and the others all raggedly followed. Rosemarie clapped hard, and while she was still clapping a car pulled into the driveway. The motor stopped and the headlights were turned off, but no one got out. The kids hurtled over to kneel on the couch and gaze out the window.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Is it Uncle Bob?’

‘No, silly! His car’s not like that!’

‘I’ll go and see,’ said Rosemarie.

They watched their mother at the driver’s window, ducking her head to talk to someone they couldn’t see. Suddenly she turned and walked quickly back into the house. They heard her go into her bedroom and close the door. They sat together on the couch, facing the tree now, waiting. A few minutes later Rosemarie reappeared in the doorway of the living room. She had changed from her pretty cotton frock into slacks and a smart top. She was holding her big yellow handbag.

‘I’m just going to get some lights for the Christmas tree,’ she said. Her eyes, bright and hectic, swept across them, then she turned and was gone. The four children turned, too, as one, kneeling on the couch again to watch their mother hurry to the stranger’s car. She was carrying the tan suitcase with the dark brown stripe, the one that usually sat on top of the big wardrobe. She heaved the case into the back seat and climbed in after it. The car’s headlights came on again, it reversed down the driveway and drove off up the street. The children were still kneeling there after the sound of the motor had well and truly faded away.

Their father came into the room, and slowly they slid down and turned to face him.

‘Where’s your mother?’ Alex asked.

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

Alex woke up troubled about the roses. It was already spring but he still hadn’t pruned the rosebushes, and now it was too late. Or was it? Well, first thing after breakfast he’d have a look at them. He would write himself a note, that’s what he’d do. Oh, these notebooks were a jolly good idea! The perfect solution to the little tricks his memory seemed to be playing lately. Now he kept notebooks in the car and the garden shed and every room of the house. He bought them in bundles of ten from the $2 shop – couldn’t beat that for a bargain! Sometimes he would come across several of them huddled together like children playing hide-and-seek. Yet despite having so many, all too often he couldn’t lay his hands on one when he needed it. Or it would be a different notebook, not the one he needed. But never mind, they were still a marvellous idea, because if he wrote things down then he couldn’t forget them, could he? Simple as that!

As he leaned across for the little notebook sitting there on the bedside table he caught his own inner swell of triumph,
like one of those bumptious sports stars these days
, he chided himself wryly. When
did athletes start carrying on like that? The upthrust arm and victory snarl. John Landy certainly didn’t. Betty Cuthbert: can you imagine? He picked up the notebook and the pen and wrote
Check roses for pruning
on a fresh page. There!

With his feet on the floor now and the little notebook still in his hand, Alex flipped back a page reflexively. No need for glasses, how’s that! Nothing wrong with his eyesight!
Ring Jeannie, wish her Happy Birthday
. Jeannie? ‘Now that rings a bell,’ he said.

A relative, for sure. But which one, and what birthday, and when should he ring? Maybe he had that written down somewhere else. The calendar? Really should date these little notes. Or he could – ah, that’s the ticket! He wrote underneath this Jeannie message
Check with Deb
, tapped hard to make a good definite full stop, and with a feeling of satisfaction flipped the page over.
Check roses for pruning.
God, the bloody roses!

He kept the notebook open by him as he made a cup of tea and some toast, and the moment he’d finished he took the secateurs and the medium-weight gardening gloves and went out to the line of rosebushes along the front fence. He had to shake his head twice. He blinked and blinked again. All pruned, and a beautiful job of it, too, and the pinkish shoots of new spring growth coming along. How could that be? The worry in his mind was still there, the vision of the roses unkempt and straggling…

‘It must have been a dream,’ Alex said wonderingly, and even as he said it, yes, so it seemed, a dream he had been having just before he woke. Or just before he fell asleep last night. But how could you dream before you fell asleep, eh? Foolishness!

‘Something I just need to check with you, Deb. When’s Cousin Jeannie’s birthday, do you know?’

‘Cousin Jeannie? Whose cousin’s that, Dad?’

‘Well, she’s my cousin, isn’t she?’

‘Your cousin? Sorry, Dad, I’m drawing a blank on this one.’

‘Oh. An auntie maybe?’

‘An auntie? There was Auntie Margaret, but she’s dead now, and there’s Uncle Bob’s wife Joan over in Perth… Is that who you mean? Auntie Joan?’

‘No, darl, not Bob’s wife. Jeannie. She was… she was…Well, but I made a note to ring her and wish her happy birthday.’

Standing in her kitchen, gazing distractedly at various items on the noticeboard beside her, Deborah could picture her father perfectly, standing in his own kitchen just a few kilometres away, probably with his back door open so he could look out to the garden. This was not the outer suburban home of her early childhood, nor the one closer to her father’s work that they’d moved to the year after her mother disappeared. Alex had bought this place fifteen or sixteen years ago, when he retired. He’d bought it not for the house, which was small and unremarkable, but for the block: a quarter acre that had been mostly lawn, a blank canvas he could spend the rest of his life filling in. Which was exactly what he’d done, and was still doing, and good for him – but her life was full of more pressing concerns than what bulbs to order and some forgotten relative’s forgotten birthday.

‘Sorry, Dad. If anything occurs to me I’ll ring you back. But I’m just in the middle of doing something right now. Yes… yes, I will. Talk soon, Dad, okay? Bye.’

Deborah walked back towards the study. Her lower back ached all the time these days. Here it was, only midmorning, and she’d been sitting at that damn computer too long already. And on a Saturday! Angus, unpacking the shopping from the market, tried to catch her wrist as she went past. She paused, her glance flicking past him to the study.

‘Your father?’ he asked.

‘Who else do I call Dad?’ she said, her voice sharp.

‘Everything okay?’

Deborah rolled her eyes. ‘God, I don’t know. Some cousin whose birthday he can’t remember. Honestly, sometimes I think he’s going gaga.’

‘He’s getting on, Dee. Isn’t he eighty now? His memory’s bound to play up a bit, don’t you think?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t call me Dee. It’s not my name, it’s not any bloody name at all, it’s just an initial for god’s sake. What if I started calling you by your initial?’

‘It’s just a nickname,’ Angus said mildly. ‘An affectionate diminutive. You never used to mind.’

She flapped her hand at him dismissively, and stalked off. But the stiffness across her lower back made it feel like her bum was sticking out,
like a waddling duck
, she thought disgustedly, and she hated Angus for watching her. She reached the study and closed the door with dignified firmness behind her, then realised she’d left her cup of coffee on the kitchen bench. She hesitated, opened the door. Angus was walking towards her with the cup in his hand. She took it from him silently and closed the door again.

‘That’s okay, darling,’ she heard her husband say. She pressed her lips together and sat back down at the computer. As the screen filled with text a voice inside her head said,
God, you’re mean! Can’t you just be nice to him?
She gave a tiny groan.
I know, I know
, she thought.
I’ll make it up to him later. Once I’m finished –
Damn, another error! Deborah swooped the cursor onto it, narrowing her eyes. Her back slumped and she didn’t even notice.

Olivia was walking over to her grandfather’s house that Saturday morning with Mintie and Fly-by. It was quicker to ride, of course, but then she couldn’t take both dogs. Mintie was fine running beside the bike, but Fly-by was an absolute idiot, charging across in front of her and panicking if another bike came up silently behind them. Every dog has at least one unchangeable quirk, and that was Fly-by’s.
But walking, they were no problem. And Grandpa would give her a lift back later in the afternoon.

Olivia’s route from North Fitzroy to her grandfather’s in Alphington was carefully planned, taking advantage of every off-leash area along the way. Through a series of parks, beside the Merri Creek and at one point the Yarra river; there were few roads to cross and when she got to them, she always leashed the dogs. When she was little her mum or dad had walked or ridden with her, but a few years ago she had persuaded her parents to let her make the trip by herself. Well, herself and her border collie.

She’d stood in her prime eavesdropping spot, on the other side of a carefully just-barely-opened living room door, as they discussed it.

‘I don’t know, Angus. She’s only nine. It’s quite a way to go on her own,’ her mother had said.

‘Yeah, but she’s used to it, and she certainly knows the way,’ said her dad.

‘She’d have to stick to the agreed route.’

‘We know she’ll do that. She hasn’t changed her walk to school by as much as a house-block in four years!’

‘And only with the dogs. Mintie’s so devoted, she wouldn’t leave her side for an instant.’

‘And she’d tear the throat out of anyone who tried to have a go at her,’ her father said.

‘I think we’ll have to get her a mobile phone. For emergencies. And she has to ring us as soon as she gets to Dad’s.’

‘Definitely.’

‘Oh, god!’ Olivia heard the muted thud as her mother suddenly slapped both hands down on the leather arms of her chair. ‘
Why
is she so insistent about doing every darn thing on her own! Do you really think it’s okay, Angus?’

‘I think so, darling, yes. And the thing is… she’ll just keep on at us till we agree, we both know that.’

On the other side of the door, Olivia had smiled, and she smiled
again now as she walked, remembering. Even these days, when her parents argued about a lot of things, they still never argued about her. She put that down to good training. It was just like with the dogs – not that her parents were dogs, of course. But Olivia liked orderly routines, she always had, and she had noticed that just about everyone – humans, plants, animals – was happier that way. Logical, familiar, satisfying routines. They made things so much better.