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it was about twenty years ago, so that would be fourteen years before you came.’
    Hannah looked at me with the blank incomprehension of a child who cannot imagine anything existing before they were born, let alone any period of time that long ago. I couldn’t blame her – I can just about remember being that age, when an evening without one’s friends seemed to stretch to the length of a prison sentence. Now whole years flash by.
    ‘Have you been to Wellington?’ She sat down at the table.
    ‘Yup. Got a lot of houses built into the hills round the harbour. Last time I went I couldn’t imagine how they stayed up there.’
    ‘Were they on stilts?’
    ‘Something like that. Foolish, though – I heard the whole town was built on a fault line. I wouldn’t want to be in a house on stilts when the earth moved.’
    For a moment Hannah digested this.
    ‘Why do you ask, sweetheart?’ Liza patted her legs for the dog to jump up. Milly never had to be asked twice.
    Hannah twisted a strand of hair in her fingers. ‘There’s a school trip. After Christmas. I was wondering if I could go.’ She looked from one of us to the other, as if she’d guessed what we would say. ‘It’s not that expensive. We’ll be staying in hostels – and you know what the teachers are like. We’d never be allowed to go anywhere without them.’ Her voice got a little quicker. ‘And it’s meant to be very educational. We’d be learning about Maori culture and volcanoes . . .’
    It’s a terrible thing to watch the face of a child who knows she is asking the impossible.
    ‘I could help out with my savings if it costs too much.’
    ‘I don’t think it’s possible.’ Liza reached out a hand. ‘I’m really sorry, lovey.’
    ‘Everyone else is going.’
    She was too good a child to get angry. It was more a plea than a protest. Sometimes I would have preferred it if she had got angry.
    ‘Please.’
    ‘We don’t have the money.’
    ‘But I’ve got nearly three hundred dollars saved up – and there’s ages to go. We could all save up.’
    Liza looked at me and shrugged. ‘We’ll see,’ she said, in a tone that suggested even to me that she clearly wouldn’t.
    ‘I’ll make a deal with you, Hannah.’ I put down my darning. I was doing a terrible job anyway. ‘I’ve got some investments that are due to come in around spring next year. I thought I might pay for us all to take a trip up to the Northern Territory. I’ve always fancied a look round Kakadu National Park, maybe a wrestle with the crocodiles. What do you think?’
    I could see from her face what she thought: that she didn’t want to be travelling round Australia with her mum and an old woman, that she would rather be headed for a foreign country, flying on an aeroplane with her friends, giggling, staying up late and sending homesick postcards. But that was the one thing we couldn’t give her.
    I tried, Lord knows I tried. ‘We could take Milly too,’ I said. ‘Perhaps if we’ve got enough money we could even ask Lara’s mother if Lara would like to come with us.’
    Hannah was staring at the table. ‘That would be nice,’ she said eventually, and then, with a smile that wasn’t very much like one, she added, ‘I’m going next door. My programme’s on in a minute.’
    Liza looked at me. Her eyes said everything we both knew: Silver Bay is a beautiful little town, but even a stretch of Paradise will become ugly if you’re never allowed to leave it.
    ‘There’s no point blaming yourself,’ I said, when I was sure Hannah couldn’t hear. ‘There’s nothing you can do. Not for now.’
    I have seen many times over the past few years the doubt that flickered across her face. ‘She’ll get over it,’ I said. I laid a hand on hers, and she squeezed it gratefully.
    I’m not sure either of us was convinced.

Three
     
    Mike
     
    Tina Kennedy was wearing a violet brassière, edged with lace and four, possibly five, mauve rosebuds at the top of each