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lift, Robin.’
    Evie waves and closes the door. ‘Bye.’
    â€˜Hang on,’ her dad calls.
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    He stops the car at the footpath. ‘Get in.’
    Evie climbs into the front seat. ‘Sorry, Dad,’ she says. ‘Are you guys okay? I feel so bad that it’s –’
    â€˜It’s not your fault. She can’t help it.’
    â€˜Can’t help what? Hating me?’
    â€˜Evie, she’s your mother, for godsake. She loves you.’
    â€˜Dad, that’s such a typical parent thing to say.’
    â€˜Well, it’s true. Of course she loves you. You’re her daughter.’
    â€˜Just not the daughter she wanted,’ Evie says, staring out the window.
    â€˜That’s not true. It means so much to her being a mother, having a daughter. I think it’s something she craved all her life.’
    â€˜Why do you say that?’
    â€˜She was so little when her mother died, Evie. She was brought up by a string of housekeepers. Sometimes five or six different ones in a year.’
    â€˜What about her father?’
    â€˜Well, he was hardly the warmest man in the world.’
    â€˜See, she can be like that too.’
    â€˜She tries.’
    â€˜Look, Dad, you know what I’m saying.’ Evie turns to face him. ‘Ever since that stuff happened at school and mum’s been seeing a counsellor, she’s been so – so cut off. At least she used to try and pretend I wasn’t a freak. Now she can’t even do that.’
    â€˜She was the same with my mother,’ he says.
    â€˜Well, what’s it going to take? Me predicting an earthquake or something?’
    â€˜Evie, it hasn’t been easy for her. At least I know about this. I mean, I grew up with it around me. People were always coming to the house to see my mum. “Is Anna here? I need Anna to read for me.” At all hours of the day and night.’
    â€˜Did it bother you?’
    â€˜No. That’s what I’m trying to say. To me, it was completely normal. That’s the way my mother was.’
    â€˜What about Grandpa? What did he think?’
    â€˜He thought she was special.’ He pauses. ‘She was special.’
    â€˜I wish Mum could think like that.’
    â€˜Look, she’s trying. That’s why she’s seeing a counsellor. There are lots of things she has to work through. Her father wasn’t at all tolerant of, let’s say, supernatural things. He was a minister and more than that he was a very harsh man.’
    â€˜Did he like you?’
    â€˜Not much but then he didn’t like anyone much and he especially didn’t like my mother.’
    â€˜Sounds familiar.’
    They drive the rest of the way in silence.
    As Evie gets out of the car her dad calls, ‘Evie? Here,’ and hands her fifty dollars.
    â€˜Dad, it’s okay.’
    â€˜Take it. Please? You’re a good girl, Evie.’
    She smiles. ‘Thanks.’
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    A busker smiles at her as she walks through the market gates. Evie takes a deep breath and feels her heart flutter. She is nervous about seeing Ben, but then she always is. It’s a ‘good nervous’, full of butterflies and secret smiles. It’s facing Petrina she dreads. Not physically, it’s just that she’s never had to face it here. Here she has always been free, nameless. Simply a girl from somewhere who loves second-hand clothes. No reputation or rumour follows. The market has been like her refuge, her escape.
    She goes to see Ben first but he’s not at his stall. She looksaround for him. Sometimes she pretends he’ll walk up to her and say, ‘Hey, babe, let’s go and have a curry.’ He’ll buy her a mixed plate and they’ll sit on the grass discussing Post-modernism and the French Impressionists. She’s sure he’s into all that. He looks arty and sophisticated.
    â€˜G’day.’
    Evie looks up to see Ben’s crooked