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Helen stopped suddenly. She looked across the table at the three faces staring back at her. Gemma looked sceptical, Charlie looked mildly amused, and Phoebe looked as pleased as punch as she gave Helen a suggestive wink.

‘I have to put Noah to bed,' Helen said quickly, leaving the kitchen, along with their conjectures.

When she walked into Noah's room Myles was sitting on the floor with rows of toy figures lined up around him.

‘Do I haffa go to bed yet, Mummy?' Noah blurted the moment he saw her.

‘You have to start getting ready at least, Noah,' she said.

‘But I wanna play wif Myers.'

Myles started to get up. ‘Hey, Noah, we can play another time.'

‘But when?' he wanted to know, plaintively.

Myles glanced at Helen. ‘Very soon,' she said. ‘Now, you'd better start packing up, Noah.'

‘I don't wanna, Mummy, I wanna play wif Myers.'

‘Come on,' said Myles, still on his knees. ‘I'll give you a hand. Let's see how fast we can put everything away!'

With a little giggling and shrieking the toys were packed up and Noah seemed placated for now.

‘Start getting changed into your pyjamas, Noah,' said Helen. ‘I'll be back in a sec to help you.'

‘Bye, Noah,' said Myles. ‘See you next time.'

‘Promise?' he said, staring straight up at him.

Myles nodded, ruffling his hair affectionately. ‘I promise, okay?'

‘Bye bye, Myers,' Noah said longingly as they left the room.

‘Well, you certainly made an impression, Myers,' Helen smiled, out in the hall.

‘Fine judge of character, your son,' said Myles. ‘But really, he's a great kid, you must be really proud, Helen.'

‘Thank you, I am,' she said. ‘Anyhow, you deserve another drink. I'll see you back out there as soon as I get him to bed.'

Myles looked uneasy. ‘Actually, Helen, I think I might head off.'

‘Why?'

He hesitated. ‘It's getting late . . .'

Helen folded her arms. ‘I'm just putting my four year old to bed,' she said. ‘It's not late, Myles. Where's your much-prized honesty now?'

He sighed heavily. ‘I just make everyone uncomfortable.'

‘That's not true,' Helen protested. ‘Phoebe really likes you.'

‘So you were talking about me?' said Myles.

She shrugged. ‘Your name might have come up.'

He lifted an eyebrow. ‘And what did Gemma have to say?'

Helen was trying to remember anything Gemma had said that she could share with him.

‘It's okay, Helen,' said Myles eventually. ‘Gemma and I have a . . . difficult relationship. She shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable in her own home.'

‘Well, it's not her home,' Helen said, feeling herself getting annoyed, and feeling herself getting even more annoyed because she was getting annoyed. ‘I mean, it is, but it's my home too, and I invited you and you shouldn't feel you have to go because she's being rude.'

‘Helen –'

‘Just don't go yet,' she said. ‘Wait till I'm finished with Noah. Please?'

‘Okay,' he relented.

‘See you in ten,' she said, slipping back into Noah's room.

When she rejoined them in the kitchen, things seemed marginally more relaxed, probably due to the increase in the collective consumption of alcohol. Phoebe had the floor, and the highest blood-alcohol level, and she was chewing Myles's ear about the vagaries of a career in corporate law. It was time to rescue him, Helen decided.

‘Are you ready to go, Myles?' she said.

He looked up at her, a little confused. Helen realised that probably sounded like she was kicking him out.

‘Myles and I are going for a walk,' she said, clarifying it for him. ‘Is that all right with you, Gemma? Noah's all tucked up in bed, you won't hear from him again.' She walked around the table as she spoke, collecting a couple of glasses and an open bottle of wine.

Gemma looked a little stunned, but eventually she stirred. ‘Oh, sure, no problem. You kids go and have fun.'

Helen stopped in the doorway, looking at Myles. ‘Ready?'

He nodded, getting to his feet. ‘Ah, thanks, thanks again for having me, Gemma. Good to see you, Charlie; nice to meet you, Phoebe.' He seemed to be ticking off a list. ‘Have a good weekend, everyone.'

Silence fell around the table until they heard the front door open, and finally close again.

‘Woohoo,' Phoebe exclaimed, refilling her glass. ‘Looks like things are hotting up in the old town tonight. Do you think they're going for a pash?'

Gemma frowned in distaste at her sister. ‘Who even says “pash” any more, Phoebe? You're not fourteen.'

Phoebe considered her sister through half-closed eyes. ‘Do you think something really weird has gone on with us since you got pregnant?'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Well, you've gone all resplect . . . respectabable . . . you know, boring, and I'm the one skolling wine and talking about pashing. Maybe your dark side had to vacate your body because of the baby, and it came into me.'

Charlie laughed, but Gemma rolled her eyes.

‘Well, good luck to Helen and Myles,' said Charlie. ‘Whatever they're getting up to.'

‘They won't be getting up to anything,' Gemma insisted. ‘You haven't heard the way Helen talks, Charlie – she says she's still married.'

‘What? Didn't her husband get hit . . .'

Phoebe did a repeat performance of her mime of a bus hitting someone, again with accompanying repugnant sound effects.

Charlie watched her, grimacing. ‘That's in really poor taste.'

‘Blame my evil twin,' she said, cocking her head towards Gemma.

‘What do you mean, she says she's still married?' Charlie asked.

‘That's how she talks about it,' Gemma tried to explain. ‘He might be dead, but nothing happened to her, so she's still his wife.'

Charlie was thoughtful. ‘She's probably just trying to describe how she feels.'

Gemma shook her head. ‘She won't even consider going on a date. A perfectly nice man she met through Noah's preschool asked her out and she flatly refused.'

‘Maybe she's just not ready,' Charlie shrugged.

‘Problem is,' said Gemma, ‘it's only going to get harder. And in the meantime, her husband's never going to age, get a gut or lose his hair, she's never going to have another fight with him, he's never going to piss her off for leaving the seat up, whatever. He's going to be pretty stiff competition for any poor bloke who comes along.'

Phoebe was nodding. ‘Just like James Dean,' she said profoundly.

‘What?' Gemma frowned.

‘James Dean is forever young, forever cool,' Phoebe explained. ‘But if he hadn't died, for all we know he could have ended up like Marlon Brando – sad, fat and totally weird.'

Gemma was nodding. ‘Marilyn Monroe died, tragic but beautiful.'

‘Elizabeth Taylor lives,' said Phoebe. ‘Sad, fat and weird.'

‘Princess Diana –'

‘No, stop there,' said Charlie.

Phoebe and Gemma both looked at him.

‘Not Princess Diana,' he said seriously. ‘She would have been beautiful no matter how long she lived.'

Gemma grinned. ‘Why Charlie, I didn't realise you were a Diana-phile.'

‘I don't want to talk about it,' he said firmly. ‘It disrespects her memory.'

Phoebe made a snorting sound. ‘Please tell me you don't have a collection of plates and tea towels at home.'

‘Anyway,' said Gemma, getting back to the point. ‘Helen's not over her husband, and if she's wandering into the bushes with the MD and a bottle of wine, he would have every reason to expect . . . something to happen. She's leading him on.'

‘You're not suggesting she's doing it on purpose?' Charlie said dubiously.

‘Who knows?' Gemma said. ‘I mean, ever since she tripped
into Bailey's, I've been shafted. After I did her a favour getting her the job in the first place.'

‘I thought she was the one doing
you
a favour?' Charlie reminded her.

‘Whatever, she's certainly manipulating it to her advantage now.'

‘Oh, come on, Gem, Helen's not like that,' said Phoebe. ‘She couldn't manipulate her way out of a paper bag.'

‘So you say, but honestly, I'm beginning to worry I won't get my job back after I have the baby,' Gemma said. ‘Then what am I going to do?'

‘I don't think you should worry about that,' said Charlie. ‘I agree with Phoebe: Helen wouldn't do that to you.'

‘But Myles would,' she countered. ‘You didn't hear the way he was going on about her before you got here, Charlie. He's obviously smitten, and he feels sorry for her losing her husband. That's a heady mix. When men start thinking with their dicks, everything else goes out the window.' Gemma looked glum. ‘I thought there were supposed to be rules about not fraternising in the workplace?'

‘It's not the fifties, Gem,' said Phoebe. ‘These days if you don't fraternise at work, where else are you going to do it?' She stopped for a minute to focus on pouring wine into her glass. ‘Besides, if what you say is true and Helen's not ready, nothing's going to happen anyway.'

Helen and Myles walked at a leisurely pace through the narrow back streets down towards the water.

‘How do you know so much about the Wastelanders?' Helen asked him. ‘Do Bailey's handle the account or something?'

Myles shook his head. ‘I have nephews.'

‘Oh? How many?'

‘Five all up.'

‘Five?' Helen exclaimed. ‘Any nieces?'

He smiled. ‘No, all boys. Runs in the family – I was one of three boys as well.'

‘Where do you come?'

‘I'm the youngest, then there's Rupert, and Hugo's the eldest.'

Helen considered him. ‘I hope you don't mind me saying . . .'

Myles looked down at her. ‘Go ahead.'

‘They're very fancy-pants names. Did you grow up with a silver spoon in your mouth, Mr Davenport?'

Myles laughed, shaking his head. ‘More like plastic. We grew up in St Kilda; it was a rough place back then, especially if you had a “fancy-pants” name. Poor old Rupe got it the worst. And he had such a temper, he used to fly off at anyone who so much as looked at him sideways.'

Helen veered Myles to the left, down a set of steps that ran between the houses.

‘My mother came from England,' Myles went on. ‘I don't think she had fully acclimatised to Australia when she had us. She didn't realise that if she'd named us Mick, Bob and Pete we would have got off a lot easier.'

‘Was your father English as well?'

Myles shook his head. ‘They met when he was backpacking around Europe, fell madly in love, and my mother disgraced the family by running off to the colonies with a no-hoper, as far as they were concerned. They were very upper class: her father was an earl.'

‘Fancy-pants after all?' Helen suggested.

‘They never had anything to do with us. They disowned my mother, cut her off completely. But that was okay with her; she told us she hated the whole class system and she was glad to get away from it. She certainly didn't want her kids to have any part of it.'

They came to a tiny patch of green edging the harbour. It could barely be called a park, but the view was stunning, looking straight across the water to the city.

‘What a great little spot,' said Myles.

‘My brother and I used to come down here when we were kids. The ferry wharf's just a little further up,' said Helen, pointing it out for Myles. ‘We'd go fishing, bring jam sandwiches and cordial in a flask . . .'

And they'd talk, Helen remembered, for hours on end. Tony was a great storyteller, and as they grew older he'd told her about all the places they were going to travel. He brought her down
here for her first illicit taste of alcohol, and her first puff of a cigarette, both of which made her sick. They lay on the grass under the shade, poring over Lonely Planet guides, while he made his plans to travel through Asia, Europe and finally to London. Helen had only one year left at school and she was going to follow him, meet up wherever he'd made it to by then. She was already saving from her after-school job at the local supermarket.

‘There's only the two of you?' Myles was asking.

Helen nodded. ‘Tony, but he lives in England now.' She turned around. ‘Do you want to sit for a while?'

‘Sure.'

They walked over to a bench and sat down. Helen passed Myles the wineglasses, and he held them while she poured.

Myles held his glass up. ‘What shall we drink to?'

Helen thought about it. ‘Let's drink to your mother. She sounds pretty great.'

‘She was,' he agreed, clinking his glass with Helen's.

‘What about your father?' she asked.

He shrugged. ‘I never knew him – he took off after I was born. Turns out Mum's family were right: he was a no-hoper. He drank too much, he couldn't hold down a job, he just wasn't up to the responsibility of a family. So my mother was left to bring us up on her own. No help, nothing from her family of course, and my father's family were all interstate. Besides, they liked to pretend we didn't exist so they didn't have to feel any responsibility either.'

‘Bringing three boys up on her own, that couldn't have been easy.'

‘No, but my mother was an amazing woman. She was incredibly resourceful, considering she'd had such a privileged upbringing. She took us to the library religiously, read to us until we were old enough to read ourselves, made sure we covered all the classics that they weren't teaching us at school. She took us to art galleries, museums, anything we could get into for free. She loved festivals,' he smiled, ‘concerts in the park, experimental theatre, weird performance art. She encouraged us to be open to everything.'