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they are, the three of them staring at me as I walk across to them.
    â€˜What on earth happened?’ Dora says.
    â€˜Long story,’ I say.
    â€˜But, my God, Lilian.’ Johnny is standing at his place. ‘This is so rude. Your beautiful dinner spoiled.’
    â€˜It’s not that beautiful, Johnny,’ I say. I raise my hand to stop them. ‘Why don’t you enjoy your meal, the three of you. I apologise for this.’
    Vincenzo, damn him, walks around the table to me. ‘Why doyou apologise? My God, you did nothing to invite this...’ he hesitates, and turns to the others as he says, ‘performance.’
    â€˜Exacto,’ Johnny says.
    â€˜Sit down, Johnny,’ I say as I escape Vincenzo’s attempt to hug me. ‘Please. I can’t explain just now.’ I look at Dora. She is still seated, though her chair is now well back from the table. I say, specifically to her, ‘Tomorrow.’
    She doesn’t take her troubled gaze off me. But she says, ‘Vin, sit down, caro. Let’s enjoy our dinner. Johnny.’
    Johnny does as he is told. He is the picture of misery. He picks up his fork, nevertheless, and rolls strings of taglietelle around it. Vincenzo, under his wife’s unspoken supplication, goes back to her. As he sits, he says, ‘All the same, I offer my sympathies to you, Lilian, for the ruination of your evening.’
    I too sit. I am not hungry, of course. I pour more wine into my half-full glass. ‘I don’t deserve sympathy, Vin, yours or anyone else’s. Most certainly not Francesca’s.’
    Dora’s hand is tactful as it takes my wrist. All the same, I feel like a prisoner in her grip and, even worse, I feel like a performer. I smile a false smile of thanks and release myself. I have a pressing need to hold my wineglass between both palms.

New South Wales, 1939
    The sun began to rise. Even before, the kookaburras were already laughing. They woke first. The trees were still spectres. Light splayed out along the horizon, the tip of the sun’s head crowned and into the world came the huge, unavoidable presence. It was perfect, blood red, heavy. Other birds sensed it. One after another the calls came, a whip lashed, bells chimed in tiny throats. One bird shrieked high and clear and across the vastness of the bush, miles perhaps, another, waiting, shrieked back. The darkness bled away in the night-cooled clay; and beneath the storms of mist breathing among the trunks of trees, discarded strings of bark hung lank to the grass and nests of damp ferns hid.
    The sun rose swiftly from the earth. It shrank as it ascended and became more brilliant, distant. The bush turned to its business.
    The young husband left the house without disturbing his wife. She was waking as he quietly closed the screen door.
    The clock on the sideboard tick-tocked. There were hours when she loved its sound. She reached for his pillow, hugged it against her. She lay awake, listening.
    It was after two when she picked up the tin dish and openedthe screen door with her hip. She stepped down from the verandah. The light brown earth had a red tinge to it. It was dry. Dust. When she tipped the water a few feet from the front door, it found no purchase, turned immediately to mud. Belatedly, she spotted the row of leggy geraniums growing by the verandah. ‘Oh,’ she said, and she walked across the dirt to the thirsty plants, upended the dish and shook it. A few drops caught themselves on leaves, weighed them down and dripped ineffectually to the cracked soil. ‘Bugger,’ she said.
    It was as she trailed towards the cottage, the tin dish clutched against her breast, that her father-in-law’s black car, kicking up a dust trail, drove to the main house. Young Frankie rode on the running board, leaning his body out like a taut bow. She could make out his father’s hand as it banged on the outside of his door and she could hear him shouting