‘She wouldn’t be quite so annoying if she wasn’t quite so short,’ she said.

She scratched her head and pulled her hair behind her ears in the way that she always did. He looked down at the table and closed his eyes for a second longer than a blink.

‘Like the cardigan she was wearing was a perfect fit, except for the sleeves, and so she’d made a cuff which was four rolls thick.’ She cleared her throat and he knew that if he looked up now he would see her biting her lips.

She blew on her cup of tea. Had her blows always been so loud?

‘At least four rolls.’

Pip put his cup down, picked up the pen, pulled the newspaper closer, began drawing a moustache.

‘And she giggles when she can’t reach things,’ she said.

She took a sip which became a slurp.

Pip added glasses to the face he had moustached.

‘And I don’t mean suitcases on the wardrobe or cobwebs on the cornice…anyone can get a stool and reach those kinds of things.’

Devil’s horns. A moustache, glasses and devil’s horns.

‘But no, she can’t reach the salt.’

Snot drips out of the nostril.

‘Can someone pass the salt she says and then she giggles. Every. Single. Time.’

And now the other one.

‘Like she thinks it’s funny having arms that short.’

Earwax! God, how long had it been since he’d drawn wax dribbling from ears? Twenty years? At least.

‘She could wear heels,’ she said. ‘No-one needs to be that short.’

Pip put his pen down, picked up his cup. It wasn’t the one he liked. It was all right for coffee, but not for tea.

‘Heels wouldn’t help her to reach the salt,’ he said. He brought the cup to his lips. The tea had cooled enough to drink.

She looked down at the things he had drawn, then up again.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘You know what I mean.’ She scratched at her head again. ‘And do you have to swallow like that when you drink?’

He put the cup down, picked the pen up. The next time they had this conversation Pip promised himself that he would say you’re only five foot two.

When Victoria rings – already she knows the number by heart - Jack is at the laundromat.

He calls it the laundrette.

Jack’s voice softens the ette, and Victoria pictures him. His shoulder is holding the phone up to his ear and he is lifting wet denim out of the washing machine. His shirt is tight, button undone, the curve of his neck is exposed. He has not shaved today and tomorrow he will need to wash his hair.

Victoria holds her phone tightly in her hand. She closes her eyes and she imagines that he leans in and leaves a kiss on her cheek, before his lips brush hers. Because – in her mind - he has not shaved, his cheek scrapes – but gently - across hers. And then he holds his fingers at the back of her neck.

His fingers are feather-strokes.

Victoria thinks of telling him all of this and more, but she does not. Instead, she opens her eyes, she sniffs, she clears her throat. She licks her lips and she scratches her head.

They talk.

‘I couldn’t stop thinking of you last night,’ he says.

‘I know.’ She giggles, stops herself, laughs.

She had gone to bed with her phone on the bedside table. She had turned off the lamp and watched for the glow of the telephone as his messages arrived. The sound of the phone was turned down, because it was too harsh in the night, made the house seem lonelier than it really was.

She had sent her final text at twelve. I’m going to sleep. Goodnight.

She had stopped texting, and he had too, but she had not stopped thinking of him, of the place where he was. A house with the lights turned down, the music up. She pictured him drinking beer, although with her, he had only ever drunk wine. She imagines that at parties, he spends his time leaning against the kitchen bench watching the flow and the ebb, that if she were there, they would leave early, and they would take the long way home.

She does not tell him any of this.

Victoria can hear the steady thrum of the machines at the laundromat. Laun-drette. Zips click against the dryer’s steel tube. She sees, in her mind, waist-high tables in the middle of the room. Square and sparse, laminated brown, they promise ordered piles of washing. Clean and dry. She wonders what Jack folds and what he irons. Are there things he doesn’t iron, but hangs all the same? Jeans or pants or shirts. Does he put his clothes on a chair at night or leave them strewn across the floor? And then she wonders: what does he do with his shoes.

They talk some more and the dryers drone.

Victoria thinks of the warmth of the laundry when the dryer has been on. She thinks of the laundry windows in the house where she lived as a child. They dripped with winter condensation and the panes were painted white. She used her fingertip to write boys’ names at night. I love Stephen, I love Charles, I love Pip. And then she flattened her finger out to wipe their names away. Before anyone else could see.

She puts the phone in her other hand, wipes her palm down her jeans.

She writes Jack on the pad she keeps by the fridge. The pen is black, the pad yellow. She draws a flower near the J, and then a star. Another flower, another star. And then she thinks I’m nearly forty years old.

Jack is telling her of his bike ride home as the sun came up, of seeing the car door just in time. She gasps, then laughs where she should, but she is thinking he stayed out all night. She has forgotten that it is something people do.

He tells her more of the story, then laughs. At the place where nobody got hurt.

His laugh makes her close her eyes again. She runs her fingers through her hair, her hand down the back, then the side, of her neck. She opens her eyes to listen.

He is working tonight, but not tomorrow, so perhaps they could catch up.

She says I can’t get a babysitter, not now and he says yes, I know, as if he really does, and there is a small moment before she says do you want to come here.

It is a question, not an invitation, but he says yes.

The beat of her heart has slowed.

She hears the kids outside, in the yard. There are loud shouts between them. Screams. Silence. Laughs.

Jack says I could cook. His is an invitation, with a tiny question mark.

There are other people at the laundromat. She can hear their voices, but not their words. They laugh strangers’ laughs.

Victoria thinks of Sunday nights. She thinks of washing dishes and wiping the table down. Of readers to be read and homework which should already be done. She thinks of ironing shirts and handkerchiefs.

Five of each.

Every week.

Jack says can you hold on a minute, I have to get some more coins.

Victoria thinks while she waits, if I have to wash his clothes, what load will I put them in? Whites? Colours, kids? Colours, hers? Sheets and towels? No, no, no and no. But would his be a load of their own?

Are you there? Jack asks. Sorry about that. I never bring enough coins. He laughs although there is no joke.

His voice is deep and his laugh is smooth.

Victoria closes her eyes. She reaches for the feel of his hand on her neck, and for the memory of feather strokes.

It is Thursday which makes it five days since anyone addressed her directly by her name. She does not count letters which come in the post, her husband’s endearments - honey, love or hon - or people who ring and begin by saying is this Mrs so and so? Of course she doesn’t count mum.

The calendar code for unaddressed days is red. She marks the days one by one at ten past ten which is a more random time than it seems. She counts, although she knows. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. It is the record since, six years ago, she first began to count.

And then she writes:
I leave pink smudges on white coffee cups and plastic spoons. I drink capuccinos and lick my lips between sips. I carry a black handbag and always have the right change.
I have had jobs – six - but never a career. This matters to me much less than I suppose it should. If I’d had another daughter, she’d be called Amber, Scarlett or Rose.

The phone does not ring. She thinks: perhaps it is time to record the silence as well as the noise. And then she thinks: I would use a golden pen to mark silence on the page.

She writes some more:
My husband brings me duty free perfumes. I store the bottles in the bathroom vanity. He seems not to notice that most of the bottles are more or less full.

She thinks, but doesn’t write: Except that he never brings the same one twice.

She writes:
When I am seeking comfort, I eat plates of noodles with grated parmesan cheese.
And then she writes:
Noodles and spaghetti are variations on a theme, but I would never eat spaghetti with soy sauce.

She thinks of the shopping which must be done, the washing which must be hung. There are two birthday presents to send and she will write love from gran on one. She is not sure what colour she will use.

She writes again:
It is eleven o’clock and I have heard: a kookaburra; a willy wagtail; the neighbour’s cat in the roof. She uses a different colour for each and then goes back to black. Last night: an owl; a rat; and possums danced on the roof.

She looks at her watch and then checks it against the clock. It will be her last entry for today: I want to poison the rat, but not the possum. I’m not too fussed about the cat.

The cake - banana - was soft and light when they poured it into the tin. They have used the proper sugar - caster - and sifted all of the flour. Nina closed the oven door, Ethan licked the spoon, they shared the bowl.

If there is a doorbell when they get to the house where Nina plans to deliver the cake, Nina will ask Ethan to ring it. Ding Dong, she will say when he presses it. She will remember to comb his hair before they leave and she will change his shirt, but not until they have put the icing on.

She begins the clearing up. She crunches the egg shells before she puts them in the bin, has one last lick of the bowl.

‘My name’s Nina,’ she will say, then smile. ‘I live two doors down.’

The girl will stay behind the security screen at first, but Nina will speak again.

‘We’ve heard the baby,’ she will say, and then, to reassure: ‘it’s nice. You don’t hear too many babies or kids. Not around here. Not during the day.’

The girl will open the security screen and hold it with her right arm. The baby will be cradled in her left and dressed in white. The girl’s eyes will be tired, but she will smile. A soft smile which doesn’t show her teeth.

Nina will not tell the girl about the view from upstairs in Ethan’s room. Green knickers and pink sheets on the line. Geraniums in pots. And every morning, the girl on the garden bench, a cigarette, a piece of toast and a cup of tea.

Up close, the girl will not look quite so young, but still she will be young enough to be Nina’s child. If not in years, then at least in generations.

The girl will use her hip against the door when she takes the cake and Nina will say ‘if you ever need anything, if you get lonely during the day’. Nina will have her arm around Ethan’s shoulder as she speaks. He is tall enough now for that.

Nina practices her smile and the speed of her blink, lets the water out of the sink. The house smells like cake.

But the cake, when she takes it out of the oven and slides it onto the bench, is brown and cracked on top and when she tries to take it out of the tin, too much of it stays behind.

‘Stupid oven,’ Nina says. ‘Bloody tin’. She bites at her lips, rubs at her forehead, pulls at her hair.

Nina hears the baby’s cries. They are hungry cries, she thinks. Nina wants to call out to the girl ‘you shouldn’t smoke, not with a baby, not even outside’.

She pulls the window down and she can’t hear the baby anymore.

‘We can’t take burnt cake,’ Nina says to Ethan. She needs to blow her nose, and the knot in her neck is back. ‘It isn’t neighbourly.’

Ethan wraps his arm around her legs and Nina strokes his hair.

Nina makes chocolate butter icing then she and Ethan sit on the floor and eat the cake in chunks until not quite all of it is gone.

There was a new lasagne on the top shelf when Brenton got home and that made three this week.

It was from Sue.

He could see that without taking it out of the fridge. The post-it note was pink (eat by Tuesday or freeze) and the glad wrap was in a tight double layer. It would not stick to the bottom when he dished it out. The sauce would be thick and rich and the layers of pasta would be smooth.

The lasagne would not need salt or extra tomato sauce.

It was not a big dish. Most of them had stopped leaving big dishes. Still, it would be too much for them to finish. Dad was eating hardly anything and Rose never stayed for tea anymore.

That didn’t stop her opening the fridge first thing whenever she came over.

They all think I don’t do enough, don’t they?’ Rose said it about every lasagne, stew and casserole they left. She opened the fridge before she put her bag on the table, before she flicked through the notes next to the telephone. And even when there had been Mum to go and see, the fridge was the first thing Rose did. ‘They think I can’t cope, that I should do more. I can’t do everything, you know. It’s hard enough looking after Max as it is. They’ve forgotten how much work a baby is…’.

Dad had AC/DC playing out in the shed. High Voltage. It wasn’t one he normally played. He hadn’t played much AC/DC lately at all. It had been all Hey Jude in the day and Songs of Love and Hate at night.

Brenton took the parcel from the second shelf. It was a bowl wrapped in a sticky plastic bag held together with masking tape. The masking tape had grey fluff caught along the edges and a long black hair caught underneath. Christine was the only one who didn’t leave notes about how long to warm it (30 minutes in a pre-warmed oven, 180 degrees) or what to add (half a cup of milk, one tablespoon of cream to taste).

He wondered, sometimes, what her family ate. How it would be to live with someone whose voice warbled like that, whose laugh screeched even at jokes that only needed a smile.

Brenton pulled the bag away, but he did not look long at what was inside. He walked across the room and took the large spoon from the top drawer.

He held the pot over the bin.

The pot was heavy, and it was hard to hold it with just one hand while he scraped with the other. His stomach did not turn at the moist noise and the cold smell of the food, but the sound of the spoon against the clay pot was the sound of fingernails on a blackboard.

He thought of the pages of the book they had been reading to Mum. The cover was orange and blue and he had broken the spine – more than once - so the book would stay open in his lap. The paper was not quite white and rough, and Brenton had rubbed his palm across each new page. He had wanted to clench his teeth and to bite at his lip, but he kept reading. He read even when he knew Mum couldn’t hear.

Brenton stood up straight, took the empty pot and put it in the sink. He turned the hot tap on hard and flicked his finger back and forth under the water as he waited for it to warm up. Then he squeezed the detergent in then walked away.

If he left it in the sink like that, someone would wash it tomorrow after they put another meal in the fridge.

If Sharon thought about it, she could remember she’d had her rags, one at sports day and that’s why she didn’t win the 800 metres or the hurdles or any of the sprints. And there was one in Charities Week, because that was the day the blood had shown on her skirt, and she had to pretend she had sat on a chocolate ice cream, and she’d gone home at lunch time and she hadn’t gone to school for two days until the school rang Dad, and he said I thought those days were over, love so she went back, because she hated to make him sad.

Had there been another one since then? Yeah, another one, or maybe two. Enough. There was no need to feel scared.

Sharon started to count. From now. Because it didn’t really matter, because nothing would go wrong. It was just for something to do.

She checked. Four days, a week, three weeks, a month. Over a month. Two. Shit. Shit and fuck.

She went to the toilet when she woke up, after breakfast, after her shower, when she got to school, at the end of lessons, at the beginning of lunch, halfway through lunch, at the end of the lunch, after school at school, after school at home. With no sign of blood on her knickers or on the paper, she stuck her fingers up there. She stuck them up, and she wriggled them back and forth a bit until it almost hurt. They came out again without a sign of blood. Shit. Shit and fuck.

She said to Pip ‘my rags haven’t come.’

He looked scared and he said shit and that was the moment when she knew he wouldn’t stay.

She tried to pretend there was nothing wrong, she told herself it couldn’t be true, she prayed to God. She filled her prayers with promises and bargains she told herself she’d keep. But why would He listen? He never had before.

She burnt the tea and she burst into tears.

‘What’s wrong, love?’ Dad said. ‘Is it exams? Are you worried you won’t know enough?’ She thought of a million different things to say, of different ways to get the words out, but in the end, she just said ‘I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby.’

‘There’s a bit of a sing-a-long in the dining room tonight, I’m afraid,’ Yvette said. ‘Vi’s been practising Tipperary all afternoon. You’ve probably heard.’

Pip had. That and what a friend we have in Jesus. Songs he had never expected to learn.

He gave one long, slow blink.

‘Wouldn’t be so bad if she could remember the bloody words,’ Yvette said, then she laughed. It was the kind of laugh that meant no harm.

Yvette fussed with the newspapers. She picked them off the bed section by section, folding them neatly, putting them in a pile.

The papers had been there since ten o’clock when Coral had put them down, told Pip she would be back in a moment. Just need to powder my nose is what she said.

Pip didn’t mind that Coral had never come back. Coral’s voice grated and she stumbled across commas, took no notice of full stops.

It would be good when Rose came back from Queensland and started doing the newspapers again. Rose had a voice which was soft and light and you could tell that she was thinking while she read.

Pip couldn’t remember how long Rose had been gone. People didn’t write that kind of thing on his calendar. They had asterisked Christmas and highlighted new year’s eve. Mum had been through and written all the important birthdays in red. But no one had written Rose back into one of the squares.

‘We’re not supposed to leave you in in your rooms tonight,’ Yvette said. She folded the newspaper into neat sections. ‘We’re supposed to make you all join in. Because of New Year’s Eve.’ She folded the final piece of newspaper back into place, then looked up and as far into Pip’s eyes as she could. ‘So it might be a bit late before I get back. It might be eight or so before I can see you again. Is that OK?’

Yvette nodded before she looked away. She took a few steps towards the door and put the folded newspaper on the chair by the door. ‘Yeah, anything’s better than another bloody sing-a-long, I reckon.’ Yvette closed her eyes and took a deep, but silent breath before she turned to face Pip again.

There was nothing like New Year’s Eve for turning lonely into lonelier.

She took the few steps across the room so that she could be closer to him. She bent down so she was looking directly at him. Her knees clicked loudly as she squatted.

It means you’ll get arthritis. That’s what Karen Fenn had said when they were still at school. Yvette could still see the way Karen Fenn flicked her ponytail as she spoke. She could see the blue eyeliner Karen Fenn had used every day and no teachers asked her to take it off. She could see the short skirts and the even tan. Karen Fenn was allowed to put colours through her hair.

Yvette ran the fingers on both her hands through her hair, pulled her hair back from her face and off the back of her neck. She should have worn it up today. She should have made an effort. Even if she had to work it was still New Year’s Eve.

‘D’you remember Karen Fenn?’ Yvette asked. ‘Tall she was. Married Marco Turci. That’s Dino Turci’s brother.’ She looked at Pip then shook her head. ‘Before your time I s’pose. She moved away years ago.’ She smiled at him. ‘She had lovely long fingers and her nails never seemed to break.’

Karen Fenn wouldn’t be working in an Old Folks Home on New Year’s Eve, Yvette thought. Karen Fenn wouldn’t care about the triple time and she wouldn’t offer to do the shift because she knew she wouldn’t have anything else to do anyway and you were better at work than you were down the pub where everyone else would be kissing the love of their lives.

Yvette let her hands and her hair fall. She wished she didn’t still think about Karen Fenn. As if Karen Fenn ever thought about her.

‘You’ve already had enough of sing-a-longs, haven’t you, mate?’ Yvette asked Pip. She put her hand on his. His skin was softer than it had ever been.

She pulled her hand away, then stood up, crossing her arms over her chest.

At moments like this she always used to say I know, love, I know. She used to say that to him a lot. I know. But she just nodded at him now.

Yvette smiled at him then stood up. ‘I might turn that off,’ she said. She flicked her head at the television. There were too many nurses and too many visitors left the television on. ‘It makes a racket, doesn’t it? And there’s nothing on the bloody thing.’ She reached up to the television and turned it off. ‘There’s no company in a television,’ Yvette said.

It was something she would have left as a thought in any other room.

‘You look nice today,’ Yvette said. She squinted as she looked more closely at him. ‘Is that shirt new?’ She stopped talking, nodded and smiled. ‘Thought so. That blue really suits you.’ She squinted.

‘Oh, hello,’ Yvette said. ‘Look who’s here.’ She stood up, wiped the palms of her hands down her uniform. It was looking bloody grubby now, wasn’t it?

She should have done the washing last night. You couldn’t wear a uniform two days in a row.

‘Is it still hot out there?’ Yvette asked.

Sue nodded. ‘Scorching. Gauge at our place says forty one. And that’s in the shade.’

‘Better off in here, aren’t I?’ Yvette said and she was sorry as soon as she said the words. It was a stupid thing to say in front of him. In front of his mother.

Apologising would make it worse.

‘I’ll leave you two in peace for a while, shall I?’

Pip blinked. Once for yes. Then blinked again.

Which must have been a mistake or maybe she’d seen it wrong.

In the morning, Victoria writes milk, cheese, bananas, nappies, nappy wipes. At different times during the afternoon, she adds tissues, shampoo, napi-san, dishcloths, yogurt.

She keeps smoked salmon in her mind and thinks tomorrow she will have it for lunch and if she folds the packet before she puts it in the bin, Brenton will never know.

There are other things - toilet paper, vegemite, stock cubes – they will be needing soon, but she doesn’t have the money today.

She does her shopping at night, after Brenton is home and the kids have been bathed and tea has been served and parts of it eaten, and the table is cleared, but the dishes are still on the sink. She carries go-green bags, her purse and the keys to Brenton’s car.

The day’s restlessness has not emptied from her mind.

The rock-and-roll man is in the nappy aisle, although it is Tuesday tonight. She would have come here first if she had known. She throws the packet of nappies in the trolley, then she pats at her hair, bites at her lips, smooths the front of her shirt.

He is at the other end of the aisle, a pallette of boxes in front of him. He uses a stanley knife to slice the box. He pulls the knife towards him and she thinks they are probably taught to slice the boxes side to side. It is not safe the way he is doing it.

His grey hair is swept from his face, Elvis-style, and his skin is that of a man who has smoked too long. His white shirt is crease-less, tucked neatly into his trousers (black and tight and she wishes he would turn around). He is wearing gold cufflinks, filled with a black stone.

She pulls gently on her earlobe and remembers the onyx earings she used to wear to parties on Saturday nights.

When he looks up, Victoria smiles at him.

He smiles with his mouth and she thinks if he blinks slowly enough, she could kiss the lids of his eyes and rub her hands across his skin.

Victoria would forgive him every flaw and he would not mind that he was fifty years old and working at a job made for adolescent boys.

Bertha Steel is ‘thin and delicate’, Mary Carrington is ‘stout and well’.
Levinia Pate is ‘clean and well-kept’ in March, ‘healthy and clean’ in April, but ‘dead’ early in May.

Lucky Bertha Steel. By May she has ‘improved in every way’.

The Visiting Inspector's Report Book Licensed Foster Mothers Vol 1 1881-1883, GRG 27/19, State Records of South Australia

Mike took Diana to the hospital after a few hours of labour pains. The sister told him they’d be hours yet and sent him home to rest because it was three am. Diana said I’m a doctor, I know it’s on it’s way, but the sister said there, there dear and winked at Mike.

The baby arrived an hour after that and Diana spent the rest of her life trying not to care that she was on her own.