Grandfather Tolley carried her through to the bathroom behind the shop, hurrying her along a narrow passageway hung with blistered brown wall panels, past shadowy door recesses, under a solitary low-wattage bulb that glowed dimly beneath a patina of singed moths and dust. He stood her in the chipped bath, stripped off her socks and shoes, dabbed at her bloodied knee, crescents of blood chasing one upon the other as he swiped at the injury with his washcloth. Wicked girl, unmanageable. Anna stared over his head at Hugo, who jittered in the doorway, his thumb in his mouth for the first time in years. Grandfather Tolley had rooms they’d never seen before. He lived in the shop, his kitchen and his bedroom. Sometimes he opened the sitting room for birthdays, Sunday teas. He was absorbed, solitary, shut in, a man who sought comfort in indirect light. It just shows you that a house is not a home, Anna’s father said. It lacked a woman’s touch. I lived there from the time I was a baby until I married your mother, and the only time I ever smelt baking or perfume was if one of his customers felt sorry for us and dropped by with a cake. He wouldn’t know what to say to her. But we were okay. We managed. I would’ve liked a holiday at the beach now and then, but that was out of the question. He never ever saw the sea again. He tried hard not to be over-protective, but it wasn’t easy for him, poor old beggar. A few years later, Anna’s mother blinked at the dents where her bed had pressed against the carpet, at the shadow where ‘The Haywain’ had angled upon a picture wire, her voice bouncing from the empty surfaces: Isonville used to be my home, now it’s just a house. Anna’s father had one hand around her waist, another finger-hooked to a hatbox: Come on, Ellie. A fresh start. It’s not as if I ever felt truly at home here, you know. Your father’s place and all that. He saw his mistake, her offended spine and betrayed mouth, and tried to make it better. Catching Anna’s eye: Get in the car, you kids, quick smart. Anna came home to Pandowie every Easter, every semester, every long weekend. Lockie would call for her at the six-forty acres and they would disappear for hours in his ute. Her mother said: We never see you. Can’t you stay at home this once? Poor Hugo, he misses you desperately, you know, stuck here with us. He’s always asking when you’re coming home again. Pay him some attention, dear. Take him to the Wirrabara Dance tonight, why don’t you? Mortified, Anna went in search of her brother. Fencing with Dad on the other side of the hill, her mother said. Anna climbed away from the house, kicking at dirt clods between the stubble rows: I am guilty of selfishness and self-absorption. I am a bad sister, a bad daughter. I have much to atone for. She found the menfolk in a creek where a flash flood had swept the fence away. Her father was saying: She’ll do, mate. Hugo was saying: No, Dad. It’s crooked. This was the essential history between them. They welcomed her interruption. Two warm, uncomplicated smiles to light her advance through the wiregrass. Uncle Kitch chose a day in early spring for the Ison reunion. The women wore spring cottons, the men wore their shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. Isons from all over Australia. Isons I hadn’t known existed, Anna’s mother said. She walked with Anna through the big rooms of her brother’s house, smiling hellos to the thronging strangers. She went to the bathroom, came out stifling laughter: Anna, go and look. Anna looked. All through the day she came upon those message strips: Turn Off Light. Flush After Use. Keep Shut. Private, No Entry. Poor Uncle Kitch, she said. It’s as if his home is a monster, devouring all of his money. Anna compiled her lists from the To Let notices in the Chronicle and the Stock Journal, piled the children into the car and drove through the dispiriting hours, crossing off one address, scribbling maybe against another. She didn’t see how she could turn those empty hovels into homes. They were eaten up with weeds and salt damp. Their floors leaned. They were angled to resist the sun. Didn’t these people think before they built? she wanted to know. Then the empty schoolmaster’s house by the sunken road was offered for rent. It had been renovated by a weekending QC from Adelaide, who now wanted to spend his weekends on a yacht. This is our new home, Anna said, holding two little hands. You’ll each have a bedroom, won’t that be good? She watched the children, waiting for them to throw off their chains, thinking that she could relax when finally they relaxed. They stood mute and dazed, wall-sidlers who dared not stray from her side. It was their Uncle Hugo who saved them, with a little red wagon. Anna watched Michael balance on his heels and poke the wagon and swivel the handle and gauge the capacity. She saw him lift Becky around the waist and plonk her down on the tray top. He tugged the handle. Becky rocked, her eyes wide, her knuckles white: Mikey, make it go! The Conservatorium of Music wrote to say that Rebecca was obliged to enrol in person. We’ll drive you down, Anna said, and went at once to the telephone: Sam to see Dr Slade about his back, 9.45 on North Terrace; a glaucoma check for herself, 11.15; the three of them to pop in on Mrs Mac in the nursing home around two o’clock. On the way home, Rebecca leaned into the space between the two front seats: Mother, where does it come from, your saying Home, James? Every time we go out anywhere. Anna had to think: You know, I believe poor old Mrs Mac used to say it whenever she picked us up after school. Home, James. We used to wonder who James was. The six-forty acres is home to Hugo now. Anna and Sam like to have dinner with him. He’s a man alone, like many of the men in Anna’s life. Alone doesn’t necessarily mean lonely, he says. I’m content. He’s a good cook. He’s proud of his garden. He likes to show Anna the hidden folds in the six-forty acres, washaways he’s reclaimed with a hundred young trees. Anna’s last home will be a little place beside the sea. A home, not a house, as some of the places she’s lived in have been. Even so, two or three times a year she will ring Pandowie and say to her mother, her brother: Get a bed ready. I’m coming home for the weekend.