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Or your son’s.”
    Rosalind did not question that. She and Juliet nodded understandingly; they were, after all, Roumanian, though long removed. They had arrived in Australia when Juliet was six months old, Rosalind five years old and Ophelia ten, but there were centuries of intrigue in their blood. Their mother, Ileana, had come of a family noted for its political chicanery; she had died of sunstroke six months after her arrival in Sydney, sad to depart but happy in the thought that her daughters would grow up in a community where the politicians of the time were as buyable as those back home. She had been ten years older than her sculptor husband, Adam, and, though not expecting to go so soon, had told him she would die before he turned to chasing younger women. He, distraught at the thought of losing her, had asked for advice on how to bring up their daughters. She, with her last breath but still aware of the world’s opportunities, especially amongst the native barbarians, had murmured, “See that they marry rich.” The sisters had done their best to honour their mother’s wish. The blood of their mother’s family ran like liquid gold through them, their vote was always buyable if the price was right.
    â€œDid Derek arrange it? The political favour?”
    â€œI suppose he must have. Cormac doesn’t tell me everything that goes on, though I’m often tempted to ask.”
    Ophelia was the impulsive one of the three sisters. On the spur of the moment she had asked Cormac Casement to marry her; a spur of a different sort had been that he had as much money as her dreams were made on. They had gone to bed on their second meeting, she experimenting with an older lover, wondering if his technique would be so simple as to be puritanical; he wondering if his heart would stand up to the demands of what the feminists called a “woman in her post-menopausal prime.” Each had surprised the other and a month after they had met she proposed. He, not given to impulsiveness, further surprised himself by accepting.
    â€œBut Cormac did say something last week that I didn’t take much notice of. He said Rob was up to something and he’d have to speak to him.”
    â€œRob was always up to something,” said Juliet. “Or up something.”
    â€œDon’t be vulgar,” said Rosalind, who could be as vulgar as any gypsy when her temper got away from her. Aware of this, she had cultivated a cautiousness that sometimes made her seem much more callous than her sisters. “He liked girls, but that’s healthy. Or it used to be.”
    Juliet, who even as a child in a bath had liked to make waves, said, “’Lind, he liked women , not just girls. Any age. His fly was permanently unzipped.”
    Ophelia, who could catch a nuance as if it were floodlit, said, “You too?”
    The two sisters, the youngest and the eldest, exchanged glances, then both looked at Rosalind. “He got me into bed four or five times,” said Juliet. “He was a marvellous lover, so long as he kept his mouth shut. He always sounded like that loud-mouthed football commentator. He would give a description they could hear down in Melbourne. As if I didn’t know what was going on. What about you, „Phelia?”
    â€œThe same. I always felt I was in the middle of an All Blacks-Wallabies scrum.” She knew that rugby was played in Roumania and, though she had no interest in the game, she went to rugby internationals with Cormac because he had in his youth been a representative player and still followed the sport. She never went to rugby league matches, that was the peasants’ game. Her mother would have approved of her discrimination. Twice was enough. I blew the whistle after that, told him the game was over. Well?”
    The eldest and the youngest waited for Rosalind to comment. She sighed, then nodded. “Me, too. His stepmother.” She was less Roumanian