Anna banked her pennies, halfpennies and weighty scarce florins in a nude plastic pig. From time to time she hefted it in her hands but felt no satisfaction, only greed, spite and injustice. She settled that by upending Hugo’s tin moneybox and shaking out a handful of his savings and transferring them to the pig. The guilty expect guilt in others, and so Anna told herself that she was simply stealing back what her brother had stolen from her. Probably stolen from her. They were Tolleys and the Tolleys were poor. They had come from nowhere with Grandfather Tolley and they had no money, not like the Isons, her mother’s family, who had been around forever and had money to burn. Great Aunt Beulah Ison took Anna aside on her tenth birthday and said: There is an Ison fortune tied up in Chancery, dear. I’ve missed my chance. Your grandfather stopped in London on his way back from the first war but the blighters bamboozled him with red tape. Your mum’s not interested and, frankly, your Uncle Kitch wouldn’t have a clue, so it’s up to you. That’s Ison money, dear. See you get it back for the good of the family. And so Anna was reminded that she was an Ison and a Tolley. Her birthday present from Uncle Kitch and Aunt Lorna was a cheque for five shillings, and in a Tolley counterstroke she altered the five to fifteen. Uncle Kitch could afford it. He had got Grandfather Ison’s acres and Anna’s mother had not. For seven years Anna waited for a hand to descend on her collar. She’d heard that a statute of limitations existed for certain crimes, that after seven years had elapsed she could not be prosecuted. Lockie visited Anna every weekend when she left to study in the city, and in the course of her first year away she noticed a shift in him, a gradual refinement in the configuration of his dress, hair, face and conduct. He’d been observing her friends. He didn’t want to stand out, the country bumpkin. One day he said: The blokes back home, I told them you pay your half when we go out anywhere, and they looked at me like they thought it was a great idea but it would never reach further than the suburbs. A laugh bubbled up in Anna. She remembered the solemn ritual of a year, two years ago: The man always pays. But as doubts and differences crept in to shape their hours together, Lockie began to practice small, irritating, unnecessary economies. Why can’t we see a flick? Doesn’t cost much. Because I’m saving, he explained at last, hot-faced, defiant. For what? Stubbornly: For when we get married. Anna’s husband fell out with his father and money was at the root of it. I’m worth more, Sam insisted. I do all the hard work. I’ve got brains. I’m not a slave. But what will you do for money? Anna’s mother asked, when she heard the news. Anna stuck her jaw out; she didn’t want anyone to know her business: We’ll manage. They rented the old schoolhouse on the sunken road, and in those times, marked by the seasons, when the locals had no odd jobs for Sam, the little family relied upon Anna’s pay cheque, two days a week on the Chronicle. Sam didn’t fully come to terms with that. One day Rebecca asked him for a Star Wars toy, and got a dry crackle from his newspaper: Hadn’t you better ask your mother? They drove to Isonville for the reunion of the Isons, and the first thing Anna saw, when she stepped into the hall, was a table piled high with Uncle Kitch’s booklet, The Ison Family: 1850–1975. A money box, a small card: $5 please, to cover costs. Anna flicked through the pages and found ‘The Wit and Wisdom of the Isons’ at the back: If you spend two bob, the other fellow has it and you can’t get it back again. Don’t look at the sky, that won’t make it rain—best look at the ground, where you might find a sixpence. Anna wandered through the big old rooms. There was wallpaper where there hadn’t been wallpaper before, a textured Regency pattern that seemed to crowd her in. Here and there Uncle Kitch had taped reminders under switches: Turn Off After Use. With infinite patience, never raising her voice, making it a game, never letting her frustration show, Anna taught her daughter about paying her own way: No I won’t buy that outfit for you, but I will help you make one like it, or you can buy it yourself when you earn enough pocket money. Because we’re poor, that’s why, and your cello lessons cost money. Sam said nothing when Anna’s father died, leaving her twenty thousand in his will. One, it was her money; two, if Sam laid claim to it he’d feel that he was little better than his mean-spirited father. Anna took that twenty thousand to Chester Flood one day and asked him to put it to work for her. They rarely talked about Lockie, but Anna could picture Lockie whenever she saw Chester. Lockie and Chester had flashed their white teeth and crinkled their eyes at the world, one cheerily, the other knowingly. Men like that are apt to make you feel better. They can bring you luck. If they make a mistake it’s not through obvious greed or spite or calculation—so Anna likes to think. The Department of Public Prosecutions had asked her to give evidence against Chester, but she could not, she would not. She was one of dozens who’d lost money—let someone else bring him down. Today, as Anna and Sam are driving through North Adelaide on their way home to the bush, a young suit—sharp as a blade, ear-ringed, mobile phone—darts through the traffic, forcing them to brake. Sam punches the horn and pounds the wheel. Anna has never seen Sam so teary, frustrated and vicious. Yet she knows it isn’t the yuppie man as such, it’s the loans manager saying no thirty minutes earlier, confiscating their chequebooks, suggesting that they stay on as managers until a new owner can be found. No wonder the Pandowie branch’s recent offer to mount a float in the Jubilee Parade and finance the time capsule is more hypocrisy than Sam can bear. The Showalters have gone from Showalter Park. A receiver-manager lives in the big house now. Put all that together, Sam says, and what have you got? Hidden forces at work, serving the interests of international finance, that’s what. The banks determine the availability of credit, placing us in unmanageable debt so they can take us over. Anna’s mother tends to agree with him. Sales and turnover at the shop have dropped by fifty per cent in recent years, and she can no longer afford to employ the local kids. Australia is ageing and one day Anna will be one of the aged. She will depend on the government for a pension, for who in her position has superannuation? She will never have quite enough money, but she’ll not let anxiety about the lack of it wear her down.