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qualify, ‘I have to get back before dark.’
    ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
    She leaves and Rebecca rests in the seat and stares for a moment at the interior of the car. She wonders how the hell she’s going to face Zach after this. She’s probably dropped his mother at her lover’s … or something like that.
    She hears the clink of a chain and looks over her shoulder to see Mrs Kincaid around at the back gate. She fiddles with the latch, closes the gate behind her. Rebecca watches her walk across the yard. It’s a big mowed expanse, chicken-wire fence, falling-down stay assemblies, a stack of freshly cut firewood and an axe wedged in the splitting block. There are fruit trees and a border of tall lavender. The peak of Mrs Kincaid’s cap and her white T-shirt are visible through the trees for a moment, then the trees thicken and she’s lost behind them.
    Rebecca turns back to the front. There’s a cricket match being played on the oval across the river. Rebecca watches the little white figures as they run and field. A dog barks a few streets over and the sounds of the match filter to her. She opens the car door and props her foot in the place between the car body and side-view mirror. She lights a cigarette, unwraps a Violet Crumble, and settles in to watch the game.
    Cricket viewed live from a distance proves to be as boring as cricket on TV. Rebecca gets restless and gets out of the car. She wanders down to the river. There are white feathers and duck dander in the reeds and on the very edges of the water, but no actual ducks. To her left the river bends off, becoming deep, the colour of well-brewed tea, and to the right is a footbridge spanning a rocky, shallow section. No Jumping No Diving signs on either end of the bridge.
    The sun begins to set and the cricket game finishes up. It’s a still afternoon and Rebecca can hear the men congratulate one another, and one man in particular gets pats on the back for his great catch ; they laugh and there seems to be little or no animosity between the teams. No excitement over winning, no regret over losing.
    Rebecca returns to the car and watches the wickets being packed up and the men filing into the clubhouse. Cinnamon-rich and tomato-based smells waft from the restaurant, the two intertwining, as though they’re in there cooking spaghetti sauce and apple crumble at the same time. There’s the clack of dishes being stacked, loud voices and even singing – noises that seem in complete contrast to Mrs Kincaid’s sombre mood on going in there.
    Rebecca reaches for a cigarette, decides she’ll go in if Mrs Kincaid isn’t back after this smoke.
    A man dressed in cricket whites comes out of the clubhouse with a sports bag over his shoulder and a stubby in his hand. He walks around the backs of the cars, drinking beer, adjusting the bag on his back.
    When it becomes clear he’s going to cross the bridge, Rebecca shifts along on the seat so as to keep him in her line of sight. She flicks her ash out the driver’s-side window, recognises him as one of the older local boys, one of a group of five or six, a fixture at the pub, no party complete without them, always so devastatingly handsome when caught beside them alone in a quiet part of a store, or standing with them at a register, but with their life revolving in an orbit so far from yours, little chance of them giving you a sideways glance, the six years between you as good as sixty. She puts out her cigarette and slides back over to the passenger side. The cricketer steps from the bridge and starts her way.
    He throws his empty stubby in the bin, and the way he lobs it from a distance, the measured way he moves, the easy way his hand returns to his side, all spells routine. He has a V-neck cricket vest on over his shirt, and sweat stains under his arms. The dark tips of his hair sit against his forehead; the rest of his hair is a combination of mousy brown and dry bleached blond. His face is a contradiction of