CHRISTOS HAD gone for a jog. Sidney glanced at the time on her phone — 7.15 pm. She had at least forty-five minutes, although his runs were getting shorter lately. She didn’t bother locking the attic door, left her handbag hanging on the handle.

She took the Handbook of Art from the Pac King box, and turned to the back. The Poem wasn’t there. Her pulse accelerated as she checked the front of the book, fanned the pages, and shook it by its spine. The Poem did not fall out. She rummaged through the insides of the box, and between the magazines and exercise books. Not there.

She was a duck — calm on the surface — checking the Handbook again, rationally. It had to be there. She took a deep breath. And threw the book against the wall.

A puff of pale-yellow dust made her sneeze as she tipped the contents of the box onto the floor. She dropped to her knees and rifled through them, duck-paddling madly. No Poem. She searched through the bags of clothes, strewing them across the room. Not there. With a guttural cry, she upended the tub of Christmas decorations. No. The Poem was gone. It was fucking gone.

<walk to the river to the river run red river run red>

She sucked in air, making more low, animal-like noises. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her hands hurt. The Heaviness filled her body. The room’s outlines ran like pastels in rain. She crawled across the floor, made it to her handbag. Valium. Two, swallowed dry. Lying on her stomach, she hyperventilated into her hands, excruciating. The mess around her melted.

<river run red river run red river run dead dead dead>

Dean Cola, Dean Cola, Dean Cola.

At a bar at the Folies-Bergère, Sidney pulls a beer for Coke. He leans across Manet’s bottles of crème de menthe, champagne, and beer; the bowl of oranges; and the flowers in a glass.

He grips her arm and asks if she remembers.

Remembers what? She shakes her head.

A deliveryman rumbles a new beer keg towards the cellar trapdoor behind the bar. Coke says something else, but Sidney can’t hear over the noise. It was important and she yells at him to repeat it. He walks away. She follows him to the door, stops, turns back.

The bar has gone. Faye and Nan are smoking cigarettes, sunbaking topless on plastic banana lounges at Broken River Road. Sidney needs to phone Coke to ask him what he said. She goes inside the house to look for the Chanel address book Auntie Stella had given her. The flywire door bangs behind her. She searches cupboards and drawers and shelves.

‘Mum, have you seen my address book?’ she calls through the door.

Faye is blowing smoke rings into the air; the smoke mingles with the yellow dust stirred up by a passing truck. ‘Who are you?’ she says.

‘Sid. Sid? Sidney!’

A hand stroked her brow. She opened her eyes. Hairy tree-trunk thighs, muscles bulging against running shorts — Christos kneeling beside her.

‘Are you all right? What happened?’

For a beat, she thought she was still at Broken River Road. The dust settled and she sat up, shimmied on her bum away from Christos. Her back hit the wall. ‘How dare you go through my things!’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You took it, didn’t you?’

‘Took what?’

She lifted her chin; he knew exactly what she was talking about. And she could read his expression: Hide the matches; call the CAT team.

‘It’s all right, Sid.’ He stood up; he had to hunch in here. ‘I might just give Aimi a call.’

Ha! She knew it.

‘Have you been taking your meds?’

‘I’m fine, Chris. Sorry, I was just looking for a work document, an editorial report the new manager’s asked for.’ She stood and held his hands. ‘You haven’t seen it, have you?’

He eyed her warily. ‘No. Why would it be up here?’

His hunched and twisted stance, and the way the bare-bulb light hit the angles of his face, made him look like Quasimodo, the black-and-white movie version. ‘Sorry. The new manager’s a ballbreaker, so I started to panic when I couldn’t find it, and …’ She bent down and picked up a strip of tinsel. Perhaps, while she was down here, a blow job might calm the situation? No — since she hadn’t done that for him in years, it would probably arouse more suspicion than desire.

‘Where did all these books come from?’ he said, as if he didn’t know.

‘I was about to throw them out.’ She shoved them into the Pac King box, apologising again.

Christos helped her pack away the clothes and decorations.

‘I have to ring Mum.’

‘What?’ Christos straightened up and bumped his head on the slanted ceiling.

The dream had been a sign. If she didn’t have The Poem, she needed that address book.

He rubbed his head. ‘It’s been too long. You know she’ll upset you, like she always used to.’

‘People change.’

‘It’s a bad idea, Sid.’

‘I really want to talk to her.’

‘You need to have a good think about that first.’ He placed a hand on her arm. ‘And make sure I’m there to support you when you call.’