PERHAPS IT WAS THE THOUGHT of a rat’s nest nearby, in goodness-knows-whose garden tangle, but Billy seemed to want to be away from home all the time. He constantly asked to visit the Botanic Gardens. He also punctuated all conversation with chirrup and flutter, neck-thrust and swoop. And whenever Iris asked what he’d like to eat, he’d answer, ‘Nuts and seeds!’ ‘What about pasta?’ ‘Nuts and seeds!’ ‘What about sausages?’ ‘Nuts and seeds!’

‘Fish and chips?’

‘NUTS AND SEEDS!’

‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’ Iris and Liam took it in turns to reassure each other, passing to and fro the bothered-by-it-baton. Liam’s favourite: ‘It’s just a phase. Don’t be fazed.’ At which drollery Iris sighed, ‘Things will settle down.’

Once he’s had a full term at this school and made new friends, things will settle down.

Once Liam’s in a clear routine at work, things will settle down.

Once Billy’s exhausted every New Zealand bird book in the children’s section of the library, things will settle down.

Once he’s watched every episode of Attenborough’s The Life of Birds on DVD, things will settle down.

Once he’s tired of the same outing every weekend, and saying over and over, ‘Wanna cuppa tea? Wanna cuppa tea?’ to Rocky the Botanic Gardens aviary cockatoo, things will settle down.

And once things have settled down, Iris thought, maybe this something, hmmm, what-ish? Grey-ish? Removed-ish? about Liam will pass, too. He’s busy. He’s pressed. Mustn’t add to it. Things will ease.

Yet eight weeks on, things still don’t feel quite right. What is it? Their rental place has decent insulation, afternoon sun, a swathe of backyard with basketball hoop, battered trampoline, tree hut, with a trapdoor, way-hey, Billy! The house is close to parks and a choice of schools; it even comes with That Cat, which despite the ratastrophe, is great, because they’d left their pets in Auckland. So what eats at daylight’s edge, with its sharp, restless mouth?

Billy’s off at school, Liam’s off at work. Iris has fallen way behind on work for Whipstitch. Although she filled all her orders before she left Auckland (just! frantic!), she needs new ideas, should source them in a southern feel. Drop the hoodies and skirts from her line and try cowls? Or capes, with several loose tassels, to reference the gorgeous korowai she’d seen a woman wearing as she strode up to a film première at the Regent? Merino tunics? Sparkly, multicoloured balaclavas — kind of disco Pussy Riot for students dancing in southern winters? She looks through a few favourite websites, then sits with her sketchpad and jars of pencils, but perhaps it’s the light in this new studio room. She can’t conjure up that addictive sensation: the half-hypnotised, half-hungry state she gets into when an idea pushes through her fingers and onto the paper. She should do a comp-shop; trail through town and see what’s already on offer in local boutiques and markets. Though she’s still reluctant to think about choosing a machinist down here, or working out whether it would be less risky and more economical to courier prototype designs back up to the Excellently Reliable and Lovely Deidre and her team in Auckland … Like a schoolgirl, she writes a beautiful, cursive shitballs on her sketchpad. Maybe she could go back to the yoga classes downtown she’s tried, mainly to meet people. It’s pretty hard to make new acquaintances when you’re self-employed.

She could suggest buying lunch for Hannah, if she were truly lonely — to compensate for the whole embarrassing rat drama. But actually, something else — the pheromones? The tiny whiff of class difference? The general smugness of Hannah’s attitude? The fact that they met through Liam’s work, so his obsessions would be in the foreground again, as if Whipstitch were frivolous? Something, anyway, makes the idea unappealing. Desperate. And it’s crazy — Iris knows it’s quite a bit more than slightly crazy — but just today, there have been aftershocks in Christchurch, it’s on the news, and yes, Dunedin’s 400 kilometres south of that, but actually — she thinks she’ll just stay home.

She’s feeling edgy. Can’t concentrate, not right now. Can’t stomach the hyper-reality and games-arcade flash-flash-flash of TV; everyone else’s lives on Facebook look so, what? enviable, and, let’s face it, elsewhere; she can’t even concentrate on that book she’s been craving time to read. Could it be that the rest of the house is still in disorder?

So she washes the cups

And she washes the cups

And she washes the cups again;

Then when they touch the rack

She sees she needs to wash the rack

So she washes the rack and washes the rack

And washes the rack again.

And as she cleans the house

And cleans the house

And cleans the house again,

She thinks about Jase.

She thinks about Billy.

She thinks about Chatter-Billy Chatterbox

whispering to himself

deep inside his thoughts.

She shines and shines the bathroom mirror

As if she could shine away the sight of her face.

Does Liam shoulder away the thought of Pete

every day?

How often does he think about Jase?

Does he think about Billy thinking about Jase?

Does he—

Stop it, Iris.

But, no, there’s something her head won’t finish with yet …

Does Liam think about what Jase thought about his parents? Of how it would be for Billy in Jase’s situation? Will any of that come into the risks he calculates out on the water, or when hunting big-river thrills? She dreads the thought of his first trip away, when all his rants and groans about setting up Float Your Boat — the paperwork, the compliances, the GST this, IRD that, OSH and ABA (Another Bloody Acronym), she’s actually not that interested (who would be?) — are done. She worries he might decide they have to move again, to Queenstown, say, if he decides sea kayaks and paddleboards in Dunedin are too tame …

She lets the water thunder from the laundry tap, imagining herself small enough to be in a boat on its foaming rapids. All too easily she can see a water-spout churn around her, so she turns it off, wanting to shut off thought as fast. She goes to do something very quiet and dry. She dusts and she polishes and tries to sing, ‘Here Comes the Sun’.

Under the tune she mulls, frets, puzzles. Hyper-thinks, as Liam calls it: one worry hooks on to another and another, until what started as a single thread is a tanglewood. And lo, the worry makes chaos materialise right before her eyes. Iris finds more dirt, more dust, more boxes unpacked, items misplaced; books and ornaments badly aligned. Three cartons contain Liam’s precious, pug-ugly collection of Toby jugs. She’d been leaving the unpacking to him, secretly hoping that the landlord’s credenza would fill up, so the chubby, ogling, piratical faces would stay battened down in their hatches. But hey-ho, the credenza was three-quarters empty, and she supposed unpacking Liam’s kitsch would be an act of love.

She is just about to stop for lunch — it’s nearly two, in no time she’ll have to walk up the hill to get Billy — but sees a yellow spill. Or an annoying oblong strip of foil, is it? Some rubbish splayed brazenly on the floor; more muck, more disorder. More will I ever be done with this, will this place ever feel, I don’t know, right, how can a child not even your own leave this atmosphere of untoward and ice? Once a person gets like this, do they ever again find warm and home and real and true?

Swearing under her breath, she bends down to snatch up the mess, sponge it or scrub it or whatever else it would take to feel stable (and oh, she remembers badgering Jason about his socks, school bag, general junk strewn around as if he were a boy-nado, that poor kid) when her hand’s shadow swallows the mark. Her fingers plunge right into liquid gold. She’s been trying to clean sunshine. She should laugh, but she sits on the carpet and stares.