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had produced seed, that beautiful skinny-necked boy. Raelene had produced little Tracy who, according to the newspapers, she’d signed away to Cara, then changed her mind and stolen her from her bed. Both Jenny and Georgie had jumped to the conclusion that Tracy was Dino Collins’ daughter, and were relieved to learn he’d been in jail when that little girl was conceived.
    It was Collins who’d masterminded the kidnap, Jenny was certain of that. He’d been on Granny’s land that night, had been driving a car registered to Raelene when he’d crashed into a police roadblock on the Mission Bridge – and the doctors shouldn’t have wasted taxpayer money on putting that swine back together. They had. She’d followed his story in the newspapers.
    Margot had shed her seed, and every day of Jenny’s life since, she’d thanked God for Trudy – and thanked him for making her look more Hall than Macdonald.
    Did love by proxy count? Did loving Trudy do anything at all to cancel out not loving Margot?
    Knew it didn’t. From day one, Margot had denied she’d been pregnant. She’d blamed indigestion for her swelling belly. She’d denied Trudy until the day she died. If she’d caught one sight, one sniff of her, she’d throw one of her screaming, foot stamping attacks. Jenny had kept them well apart.
    Teddy Hall had fathered Trudy. He’d signed away his parental rights before the adoption but still showed too much interest in her. He’d picked up a good little car for her eighteenth birthday and been determined to give it to her, from him and his parents. Jim could be determined too. He’d paid Teddy for the car.
    Jenny picked another zucchini. Two plants would have been enough to feed her, Jim and the McPhersons. She’d planted a dozen.
    Jimmy would have had a family by now. He’d married a schoolteacher three or four days before Margaret Hooper’s death. Ian Hooper, Jim’s cousin, met the wife at Margaret’s funeral. Karen, he’d said, or was it Carlene? A pretty girl, he’d said, a teacher.
    ‘Jen? Are you still out there?’
    Jenny’s mind jarring back to the moment, she turned towards his voice. ‘I’m picking vegies for the shop,’ she called.
    ‘It’s almost nine.’
    ‘My watch says . . .’ It still said almost eight o’clock. ‘It’s stopped,’ she said.
    ‘It’s had its day, Jen.’
    ‘It keeps perfect time when I find time to wind it. I’ll have to run. Can you finish the picking? There’s a ton of tomatoes too. Strip off anything that’s turning pink.’

T OMBSTONES
    L osing Margot, then Dawn and now Macka, shattered Maisy. Bernie, not the shattering type and once again welcome in Freddy Bowen’s bar, spent his evenings there, drinking enough to put him to sleep.
    There is little joy in sucking down a skinful alone while bastards who’ve owed you one since classroom days congregate in flocks like vultures, waiting to rip the flesh off your bones when you fall down.
    He was down; he was so far down a nest of worms had started burrowing into his head. He scratched his bald scalp constantly, attempting to rid it of the crawling sensation. In places he’d scratched it raw, then picked the tops off the scabs and named them skin cancer, and blamed Macka for his skin cancers. That brainless bastard was up in Queensland and he didn’t have the skin type that stood up to too much sun.
    Bernie went to sleep thinking cancer, woke with cancer on his mind. He knew it killed, but it had previously killed others, not Macdonalds.
    He went to bed with Macka on his mind and dreamed he was in the room, then he woke and found he wasn’t. He missed the ugly bastard. He missed knowing what he was thinking before he thought it. He missed seeing himself wandering around at the mill. Missed him like a man might miss the left arm he’d been attached to since birth.
    Then the business with that girl they’d fathered started eating its way through the wormholes and into his head. When Macka had been