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anyone.’
    ‘Do you swear?’
    ‘No. I’m not swearing. I’m not swearing anything.’
    ‘So she’s there now?’
    ‘She’s in the fucking hospital.’
    ‘She’s with you, isn’t she?
    ‘Yeah, she’s with me, right here in my fucking pocket. I broke her out of the hospital.
What is wrong with you? I’m going to the house.’
    He hung up.
    The key was where it was meant to be. It was dark inside and the lights weren’t working
because, he remembered, you had to flick the master switch in the fuse box to the
side of the house. He did it, but the rooms were still dim. He’d never been there
alone before.
    The architect opened a bottle of wine and sat on the verandah with a blanket and
a couple of old books, crime novels someone had brought on holiday and read in the
afternoon sun. It was already too dark to read but he stacked the books beside him,
like props.
    She’ll ring the hospital and they’ll tell her everything. Or she’ll drive up. She’s
on her way right now. She’ll come down the long dirt driveway, headlights hiding
her face until she gets out and it’s her, still in her work clothes.
    He will pick up a book, marking the page with his thumb as he greets her.
    There will be a long scene of shouting, but they are in the country; it’s okay to
shout long and loud.

NIGHTS AT THE HOUSE
    The police came to our door, it was 6am, and the sound of them knocking worked itself
into my dream as someone bouncing a tennis ball out on the road. It was a kid, at
first—a boy. I thought he must have been waiting for Lucas, but then I realised that
it was a man instead, and the bouncing took on a more considered and foreboding tone.
    ‘Hello?’
    I woke to a voice from our front porch.
    ‘Please, can you open the door? It’s the police.’
    I went down in just my T-shirt; I didn’t think to put on pants. In the hallway I
pulled back the curtain, doubtful it could really be cops.
    A man and a woman stood by my door. They weren’t in uniform, but there was a cop
car on the road behind them, and along the street a van I didn’t recognise. A shifting
behind its windows gave the suggestion of more of them inside.
    ‘The door needs to be opened, ma’am.’
    I flicked the lock and pulled it.
    ‘Is it Gina?’ I said. ‘She’s okay?’
    ‘It’s nothing like that, please don’t be alarmed,’ the male cop said. He was a short
man with a barrel chest, serious and middle-aged.
    ‘Who’s Gina?’ the woman said. She was the taller of the two, and older, and also
the one with more hair.
    ‘She’s my girlfriend,’ I said.
    ‘But she’s not here?’
    ‘No, she’s at work. She does nights at the hospital.’
    The woman appeared to make a note of this and the man told me their names: Detective-Sergeant
Victor something, Deborah something else. They’d wanted to come in and what choice
did I have?
    So they tramped up our concrete steps and stood in our hall. A pile of our shoes
lay jumbled by their feet.
    ‘Is it okay if I go get some pants on?’ I said. They shrugged and so I went off towards
the bedroom.
    ‘When’s she due home?’ the woman, Deborah, said after me. ‘When’s Gina due home?’
    ‘About eight,’ I called back.
    I pulled my jeans from the clothes basket. Because of my calves, jeans are never
as simple as they should be and I had to sit on the bed to tug them up.
    I walked as I zipped, feeling that now I had pants on I would be more in control.
But when I reached the hallway Lucas was there, squinting his face against the morning.
    ‘Hi, Ma.’
    ‘Back to bed, you. It’s early.’
    He still had on his Spider-Man shorts but the top he must have pulled off in his
sleep.
    ‘No, but I’m awake.’
    ‘I can see that. Didn’t we have a deal?’
    He made a show of thinking about this.
    ‘I don’t think we did. Did you write something down?’
    This was it now; I had to get promises in writing from a six-year-old.
    ‘Let’s put your top on.’ He followed me into his room and