The children worsen; Lucie sweats and cries while May lies on Charlotte’s chest and doesn’t move—she can’t lift her head or talk or drink. Her arms are floppy and her skin is hot to the touch. They have both been sick before but Charlotte has never seen a child like this. Henry wrote the number of his hotel on the calendar and Charlotte phones it—when Lucie starts vomiting and May won’t open her eyes. But when she speaks to the man at reception she is told that Henry has checked out. Where is he? she asks. He didn’t say? There must be a message for me.

The child screams all night. Over and over the child screams. Which child? She can’t tell anymore. How many times has it screamed and for how many nights? She has lost count; she is too tired and she is too angry, unaccountably angry. There is no justifiable cause—she is simply worn out, and the fatigue turns somehow to rage, a shivering tide of rage that moves quickly now through her blood. If only they would stop crying and let her sleep. She is angry and afraid at the same time. Something must have happened to him. Has something happened to him? If only they’d stop crying. No, she will not go to them. Not again, please no. Please. Mummy, they call. “Mummy’s coming,” she calls back, and like a huge wave rising and crashing and rising, she drags her body from her bed towards the children’s room, the crying growing louder as she moves through the dark, towards them. This goes on night after night after night. One day. Two days, three days, four. She feels her way along the wall. There is no moon. She does not think to turn on a light. It is so black she can’t see her arm as it reaches out in front of her. Where is the door? Further. This is the wall still. Now, here—the different wood of the door, the smooth glossy paint cold to the touch. Her hand slips down towards the low handle and she stands in the children’s room, the crying coming closer now, and closer, and closer, until it is ringing down the tunnel of her ear, the child’s hot wet face pressing against her cheek.

“Hush, hush. That’s enough now. That’s enough. It was just a dream. Just a dream. Shhh, shhhhh,” she tries again. “There is nothing here. It’s a fever. You’re safe now. You’re safe.” But at the sound of her mother’s voice, May screams louder. She thrashes about in Charlotte’s arms so that Charlotte can no longer hold her and drops her back down on the bed, letting her writhe. She is too tired to walk back to her own room, too tired to stand, so she slumps down against the wall and leaves May to grow hoarse. Her head pounds. The screams run deep through her bones. What does the child want from her? What? “Stop it!” she screams back. “Stop it! Will you just stop it!” She stands up then, quickly, searches out May’s shape on the bed, picks her up under her arms, and shakes her. “Will you just stop it now! Now, I said! Now!” Then she throws her back onto the pillow. She hears the air push out of May’s lungs as her little body lands. Silence fills the room and Charlotte stumbles out, feeling her way back to the bedroom, the dark behind her trembling with tiny, stifled whimpers.

By morning Charlotte too has come down with a fever. She knows she has to get to the doctor, but when she calls she’s told he is out on his rounds and won’t be able to attend to them until the evening. She can’t find the car keys so there is no option other than to walk the girls to the practice in the next suburb. She packs the pram and sets out, moving slowly, clutching the handles for balance, the ground rolling beneath her. Sweat beads on her forehead. The children cry. The inside of her mouth feels sticky and sour. Nausea comes over her in waves. May’s face turns red and splotchy and her clothes soak through with sweat. They have not gone more than ten yards when Charlotte turns and very slowly walks back to the house. She unlocks the door, pushes the pram inside, and lies down on the cold linoleum of the hallway.

Nicholas finds her there in the afternoon. He stops by to deliver biscuits and oranges for the children and when no one answers the door he tries the handle. He helps Charlotte into bed and puts the children in beside her, then he takes a flannel from the bathroom and wipes their faces. Later, Charlotte will remember him sponging her lips, the cool water running little by little into her mouth.

He leaves late in the night but returns the next day, the sun high, the bedroom full of slippery light. Charlotte has never been so glad of company. “Come in, come in,” she whispers, the children just waking. Charlotte’s fever has broken and she’s eaten a little. He helps her dress the girls and together they go out into the garden. It is good to be outside. The sun is warm and the air fresh-smelling. They each carry a child. May rests her heavy, sleepy head on Charlotte’s shoulder and Lucie rides on Nicholas’s back. He talks to comfort Charlotte, telling her how he has begun reading Ruskin again. And how he is trying, once more, to figure out a way to paint the webs of light that waver beneath the surface of the river. This odd hobby of his.

“You never said,” Charlotte exclaims. “Really?”

Nets of silver and gold have we, said Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. It’s a rhyme I knew as a child. I’ve tried painting those bright lines for years, rather unsuccessfully, I’m afraid. It’s hard to capture the constant movement in a still image. Here,” he says, “let me show you,” and the four of them walk slowly to the water.

They stand leaning over the edge of the jetty, Nicholas with his arms outstretched on either side of the railing, Charlotte in her wide-brimmed hat, holding May, Lucie sitting on the wooden planks and clinging to the hem of her mother’s dress. Their shadows waver on the tan-colored water. “There are jellyfish down there,” Nicholas says to the children. “Can you see them?” Lucie watches, tracking the throbbing movements until the creatures disappear, their purplish bodies vanishing in deep water. Small waves from passing boats lap gently at the pylons and at the shore.

Charlotte has the strange feeling she can tell him anything, anything at all, and he will understand. It frightens her, this feeling. It frightens her because it seems they do not even need to speak to understand. They can just stand here, watching the water, and it is as if they know everything, as if everything that has ever mattered is immediately understood.

He stays for dinner, a small feast of fried eggs and grilled cheese on toast, then he helps ready the children for bed. Once they are asleep he and Charlotte step out the back door, into the tall grass. Charlotte’s eyes are slow to adjust, the moon thin and the yard dark. She smells the cool draft of late wattle flower, and other smells particular to night: damp eucalyptus leaves cold on the ground, left over wood smoke, ash, and the dirt like, earthy smell of the cold night itself, black and fine and a little sour. She pulls two old wicker chairs out from under the house and ­places them square on the grass, then she and Nicholas sit side by side, leaning their heads back against the chairs so they can better see the sky. Stars litter the dark. Charlotte’s long white hands rest along the sides of the chair. They sit in silence, watching the night, and after a while Nicholas reaches out and touches the back of her wrist. Then he takes her hand in his, lifting it, pointing it with his own. “There, the Southern Cross. There, Saturn. Do you see the shape of the bow and arrow?” he asks. No, not quite. Nicholas, still holding Charlotte’s hand, traces it out. Then they sit quietly for a while. Charlotte watches for falling stars. She watches closely, her eyes open and watering in the cold. And then they come. Charlotte has never seen so many.

“Look!” she calls.

“And another!” Nicholas cries. The two of them are like children.

“You must make a wish,” she says. “Each time you see one.”


His hands shake as he unties the scarf she wears knotted at her throat. The colored cloth falls to the floor as he pulls her gently towards him, running his fingers up through the fine hair at the nape of her neck. He bends to kiss the length of her collarbone, then opens her dress while she seeks out his mouth with her fingers. They kiss for a long time. Later they make love in her bed, her feet hooked around his buttocks, her hands slipping on his damp back. She tastes sweat and musk on his mouth. His wide shoulders move above her face, wavelike, his head dipping towards hers. At the end she calls out to him while he makes a strange choking noise and drops his forehead on her shoulder. Their bodies tremble. She feels his stomach lifting and falling against hers, heavy and warm. They stay this way while he shrinks inside her, the slow suck of wet flesh coming away from wet flesh, then the cool leak and spread of semen against her inner thighs. She eases herself out from under him and rolls over; they lie beside one another then and she strokes his stomach—it reminds her of the belly of a dog, warm, the skin white-pink, tight but soft, the fine coating of hair. For some time they stay quite still, hands touching. Around them the room smells of old flowers, rotting and sweet, the green stems yellowing in the glass vase. White street light seeps in through the gaps in the curtains. The umbrella tree scrapes back and forth on the iron roof. Birdcalls echo in the huge sky, the cluster of notes bouncing out and out and out until they vanish in distant air. There is the first hush of rain, then the jingling of a bell as a cat runs for shelter.

“You know I love you,” Nicholas says. “You know that.”

Charlotte is quiet. She strokes the back of his hand. After a while she says, “Yes,” although it is not clear whether this means yes, she knows, or yes, she loves him too.

“I want to be with you,” he says. Charlotte doesn’t reply. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“What for?” asks Charlotte. There is a long pause. Nicholas looks away, leans down, and picks up his wallet from the floor. He takes out a scrap of paper and writes something on it.

“I’m afraid I’m returning to London,” he tells her, “to sort out some business.” His voice is solid, factual. “Nothing needs to happen here, but if you do go, if you do go back, I’ll be there.” His voice softens. “Take it,” he says, passing her the piece of paper. “This is where you’ll find me.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“And when?”

“Soon.”

A green silk nightdress hangs from a hook on the back of the bedroom door. Charlotte gets up, walks across the room, and slips it on. “I think you should go now,” she says.

When she makes the bed in the morning she finds money on the sheets. Silver and copper coins. They must have been in the pockets of his trousers. She rings once and he doesn’t pick up. She rings twice and he doesn’t pick up. She knocks on his door and he doesn’t answer.