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kind, a vague under-the-skin disappointment that would not go away, that by comparison made a bit of blood nothing more than a mild curiosity.
    All the time I wondered what was happening at home, day and night. I spent far too many hours standing at that hurricane-wire fence staring up at a slow-moving sky. I knew it was all about waiting. And I was really just waiting for the ‘mess’ at home to be over.
    Towards the end of the month Dad came and got me. He told Pen that she and Jimmy were coming home. It wouldn’t be that day but in a short while.
    In the car Dad seemed changed—lighter. But I didn’t look too closely because I had an idea he was looking out for exactlythat. So we talked about sport. Rugby, actually. The pre-season weigh-in was coming up. This coming Saturday he wanted me to go over to the club and jump on the scales. He had an idea I would be going up to another weight division. It sounded like a good idea.
    As we pulled in the drive the house drew up out of memory, its red brick reasserting itself after my time away. I went straight to my bedroom and before I’d dumped my things I stood at the window looking into the backyard, and I knew. I knew, without anyone telling me, the man in the shed had gone. That evening over dinner and later, before the TV, and for several days after, I waited and I waited, but nothing was ever said about his departure. For that matter, as I was surprised to discover, I couldn’t even remember his name.
    For a period the house reverberated with new energy. It was just the washing machine, the tumble and motion of wash, but there was something like the promise of newness, and a festiveness about the colours of the clothing spinning around in a porthole of glass that was infinitely more interesting and dynamic than the view from Pen’s caravan window. The clothing came out of the wringer mangled and twisted and as stiff as cardboard—like bits of ruin, the holes and body spaces pressed out of existence.
    I helped Mum peg up these scraps and I watched them become whole again. Sleeves filled with air, trouser legs bloated out, socks became whole again. A fresh wind restored purpose to these bits of clothing. One of the cast-offs was ashirt of Dad’s that he couldn’t fit into anymore but which I had grown into, an old denim shirt whose colour had faded. It was the fade I liked, the idea that the world had left its mark and now I had that bit of experience draped over me. That shirt gave me fresh measure against a world I was growing into.
    Mum sat on the swing, watching me preen in Dad’s shirt. Look at you, she said. She smiled and just for a moment I saw a glimmer of my sister. It was as though two selves momentarily met and passed through one another. I kept staring to see if I could hold on to the moment but it was gone. Mum’s smile widened to a laugh. What are you looking at? she asked. What are you looking at?

the thing that distresses me the most
    Let me start by saying this: my husband is not a bad man. I don’t know the others all that well—Don Seeward, another from Auckland, Phil someone, James More from down south; ‘Macca’, I think they call him. Two others as well. Jim? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’ve met Don once. The others I must have spoken to when they’ve rung the house for Stuart. They all work for themselves. Stuart knew Macca at university. The rest of them he’s picked up over the years in different jobs.
    Once a year they get together to discuss ‘engineering issues’. This year it was Stuart’s turn to host the occasion.
    They flew in a few weeks before Christmas. It was aSaturday, a gorgeous day. On the way to taking the kids to the beach I stopped by Stuart’s office to drop off a quiche and a cake. I could see them in the window gathered around the table in serious discussion.
    ‘Knock, knock,’ I said as I came in. They all leapt up like a bunch of thieves. Soon as they saw the food they gushed with compliments.