"No sausages? I tell you what, I'll throw a couple in, on the house." Now the shop threatened mutiny. The door opened and the bell rang; someone was leaving. The Sausage King swaddled the sausages in white paper. Ruth saw him wink at another woman; he would serve her next. "And that's five-fifty for Mrs. Field."

Ruth nodded. She opened her purse and there was no money in it, except for the few coins she had left after the bus fare. The only other thing in there was a library card. "Goodness," she said. "I've forgotten my purse."

The Sausage King looked at the purse in her hands.

"I mean, it's empty. What a duffer!"

He was poised with the smooth white packages. "Not to worry, not to worry," he rea.s.sured, but he grinned now at the other customers. His grin said, "Silly old bird." It said, "Stupid, stupid, and old, old, old." Once, when he was still young, he had presented her sons with hats folded out of butcher's paper; they had loved them for a whole afternoon.

"I can't think-" began Ruth, but the woman who had been winked at stepped up, businesslike, although determinedly kind, and pa.s.sed six dollars to the Sausage King.

"There now!" he cried, as if a spring-lamb miracle truly had come to pa.s.s. How he trusted and loved the world; it was everywhere on his face. He patted the woman's hand. She would be invited to the New Year's barbecue.

"Oh, thank you, thank you so much," said Ruth, taking possession of her packages and their smooth infant weight. She had some idea of sending Frida to her saviour's house with six dollars, but the woman was ordering now-a complicated order, designed for a family, which called on all the skills of the delighted butcher. Her expression was resolutely against interruption or further grat.i.tude.

"Goodbye, Mrs. Field!" the Sausage King called, and Ruth waved from among her parcels and empty purse, and a woman opened the door for her. The bell shook. When she pa.s.sed into the street, the customers laughed at some joke he made. Ruth hated him and his l.u.s.ty courtesies. Harry was truly kind; truly chivalrous. None of it was for show. She would tell him that, when she got home, and she would also conceal the embarra.s.sing free meat from Frida, who frequently expressed her contempt for handouts, freeloaders, and anyone who didn't perform honest hard labour for her money. Frida would never hear about the empty purse or the helpful, mortifying woman or the temptation of the lamb roast, and she wouldn't be angry. To believe this filled Ruth with busy purpose. Where to next? The street was lined with conveniences. Next door was the chemist, across the road was the bakery, and farther down was the bank. She wondered why she didn't come to town more often. Where had she parked the car? She was always forgetting that. No-she had caught the bus. And at the end of the street was the railway station, where the trains pulled out for Sydney every three hours. Why should that be such a comforting thought? Her arms still ached.

Two boys waited outside the chemist with that particular alert boredom of boys who have been promised a reward for their patience. They watched every pa.s.sing car with interest; whenever the street was empty, their shoulders fell; their feet stepped over each other, shifting their bantam weights, like newly foaled giraffes. They had boyish faces, choral and virtuous, as if cast in a Nativity play, and long light hair which they threw out of their eyes with a beautiful backwards motion of the head. They were maybe nine and eleven. The older boy was sure of his gestures-the movement of his head, the stepping of his feet-and the younger one copied him, so their resemblance seemed less genetic and more an act of desperate study. Ruth's heart was burdened with love for these boys, who waited outside the chemist and cancelled out the Sausage King. They wore blue-and-grey school uniforms. In the shadow of the striped awning they waited and slouched, and because they had been so patient, she would buy them a milk shake each, or an ice cream if they wanted it. Surely she had enough coins for that.

Ruth hurried to them with her hands outspread; her purse dropped right at their feet, and the oldest boy picked it up for her. He was nearly as tall as she was and handed her the purse with a bashful elegance, almost feminine, which drew his features into a courtly mask.

"Thank you, my darling!" cried Ruth, and embraced him.

"S'all right," he said, in that gulping growl of boys on the very verge of change, and she released his rigid shoulders.

"You're such good boys for waiting so quietly. How about a milk shake?" Ruth held her hand out to the youngest boy, who hung back behind his brother and looked at her as if she had committed some fascinating faux pas, right there on the street. But Ruth knew the way boys could behave when they reached a certain age; she knew to ignore the discouraging twinge it produced in her throat. She shook her hand at him again, cheerfully. "What do you say? A milk shake, or do you want ice cream? You've certainly earned it."

"Mum," he said, and he seemed startled and perhaps a little afraid, and he looked past her at a woman who was leaving the chemist.

"h.e.l.lo again!" said the woman; she was Ellen Gibson. "Have you met my boys? This is Brett, and this is Jamie. Boys, this is Mrs. Field."

The boys nodded their blond heads, and their bodies seemed to dip in brief curtsies. They had the same shy smile. Their names were Brett and Jamie. They seemed to have agreed to conceal some residual awkwardness from their mother.

"You've got your meat, Ruth? Can I take you home now?"

Ruth looked towards the railway station. How would she pay for a train, with only a library card? And also-the meat would spoil.

The boys were already walking; Ellen was walking. So was Ruth. She was being led. The sea retreated, as if it had been winched down to its proper level, and that was a kind of surrender.

"This way. Mine's the red car." Ellen smiled and nodded, that same curtsey of the head her sons made. "I'll drop the boys at school first, if that's all right? They're late today, they've been to the dentist."

The boys, already belted into the back of the car, groaned on cue, as if appalled to have had their dentistry made public. Ruth sensed an injustice; she suspected her seat had been promised to one of them for the ride, and now she'd usurped it.

"Oh, dear," she said, because she couldn't manage her own seat belt. Ellen snapped it into place while Ruth held her hands, as if at gunpoint, on either side of her downcast face.

The school wasn't far away; the boys ran towards the entrance and seemed to fall into it. Ruth was amazed they could do anything at all on those long feet. "They're going to be very tall, aren't they," she said.

Ellen smiled and nodded. "Just like their father." She was proud of them; she watched until they were out of sight.

"Isn't it funny to watch children grow."

Ellen said, "It's a privilege."

Ruth scrutinized this possibility. No, she thought; it's melancholy and strange. Children were so temporary. When Jeffrey was born, Harry stroked his son's nose and said, "What's amazing is that this is forever." But it wasn't forever; it wasn't even a month. In a few weeks Jeffrey was different, and the blind, b.u.mping, waterlogged Jeffrey was gone; he was rosy and plump; he b.u.t.ted at her face the way the cats did. It came to her that she missed her children, not as they were now, with their own children, but as they had been when they were young. She would never see them again. Jeffrey on the beach when the house was still for holidays; Phillip's failing breath; their small hands. She wanted-very badly-to say "f.u.c.k."

"Now let's get you home," said Ellen.

"Do you know the way?" asked Ruth, because she herself was unsure.

"Yes. But you might have to remind me where to turn in."

Ruth tried to picture where to turn in and saw only gra.s.s-long, pale gra.s.s with a tiger in it. She smiled vaguely. She was so comfortable in the car, which Ellen handled with such confidence. The town pa.s.sed, and the sea. The suggestion of rain had vanished now, and the pale sky tended cloudlessly towards white. Ellen wanted to know what Ruth had been up to; if she'd had visitors; if she'd been getting out and enjoying the weather. "How are your sons?" she asked, and Ruth said, "They're going to be very tall."

"How often do you come into town?"

"Not nearly enough. You know how it is. Busy busy busy."

"Oh, yes," said Ellen.

"You know how it is. You're a mother."

"And you have someone looking after you?"

"I'm very well cared for," said Ruth. The car advanced so easily. "Not only that, I'm defended."

"Defended? Against what?"

Ruth noted the wonder in Ellen's voice-these small currents of response were important to her now, they were signposts for behaviour, and they alerted her to the possibility that she must rethink her previous comments-so she answered, "Against the slings and arrows of fortune."

"Of outrageous fortune," said Ellen, laughing.

And Ruth was grateful to her, and also to Frida, who had worn herself out with constant care on behalf of the house and the cats and herself, and who had driven out the tiger. But she was aware of a sense of misgiving, as if she had done something to make Frida angry; why was she frightened of Frida? The fear came and went. She remembered, then, something about making a mess in the house yesterday: throwing pills on the floor and flowers on the dune. Of course Frida was angry.

The sea was different when travelled along at speed. The sun shone from every part of the sky and water: bright light arrived from everywhere. Ruth closed her eyes and saw strong pink. She could feel the car climbing the hill and said, "It's just on the right here." Then, opening her eyes, it was like arriving at her house for the first time. She saw the gra.s.ses and tangled scrub that needed beating back from the drive, and the riot of the ruined garden, and among all this frenzy was the neat house with its scrubbed windows. It radiated a tidy quiet, but there was something unusual about it nonetheless; a faint fog seemed to rise from behind it, dimly grey and almost invisible against the water. Ellen brought the car to a stop.

Frida was sitting on the low step across the front door of the house. She looked wearily up at the car, her face resigned to disaster, and her arms fell across her knees so that her wrists turned out, as if expecting handcuffs. But when she saw the unfamiliar car, she raised herself from the step with a slow concentration that recalled her mythically fatter past. Ellen leaned over Ruth to open the pa.s.senger door, and Ruth found herself wanting it closed again; she wanted it shut against Frida. But it was too late now: Ellen was out of the car, Frida was moving. Ruth swung in the seat and her legs came sticking out into the air like a child's. This seemed to prompt Frida to hastier action. She held out her arms for Ruth to run into, and so Ruth did; she was closer to Frida's body at this moment than she had ever been. It gave out an agitated heat. She recognized this embrace; it was the way she'd hugged Jeffrey the day she came home from the hospital with his baby brother. Perhaps Frida wasn't angry after all. Ellen had averted her eyes and was studying the foggy house.

"Where in G.o.d's name have you been?" Frida cried, but Ruth, remembering her manners, drew back and turned to Ellen.

"This is Ellen," she said. "Frida, this is Ellen."

"h.e.l.lo," said Ellen. "You're Ruth's nurse?"

"I'm her carer." Frida released Ruth from her arms.

"Frida, can I ask what's happened here?" Ellen sounded terse and a.s.sured. She sounded almost detective-like, until Frida took a terrible step towards her; then the difference in their sizes was frightening.

"What's happened here," snapped Frida, and then she seemed to reconsider her position and soften her voice, "is that I've been worried sick about Ruthie vanishing like that. I've been waiting for my brother to help me find her."

The tone was soft, but also efficient and proud. Ruth waited by the front door, cradling her bundles of meat and her purse, concerned that Ellen and Frida's meeting was going badly. She noticed a bitterness in the air, a smell of old bushfire.

"You didn't know she'd left the house?"

"Not till she was halfway to the bus. Listen, you," said Frida, addressing Ruth now, "that was quite a stunt you pulled." She stepped backwards and drew Ruth into a huddle under her arm. Ellen rattled her keys and looked towards the car.

"You better say thank you to your friend for bringing you home safe," Frida said, and Ruth, who knew this was unnecessary, smiled at Ellen. Ellen smiled back. There was an understanding between them.

"How often does this happen?" Ellen asked, looking at Ruth.

"Never before," said Frida. "But that's just the way it is with these old dears. They get it in their heads to do something, and off they go."

Ellen continued to address Ruth. "If you'd ever like to go into town again, please give me a call. I'd love to take you out to lunch one day. You have my number, don't you?" She looked at Frida. "She has my number. Ellen Gibson. I'm the one who-helped when-"

Frida nodded in a businesslike way. Of course she knew all the details of Harry's death, but this nod seemed to indicate that she considered her own work-the daily drudgery of care for the widow-much meatier than Ellen's glamourous part in proceedings.

"All right then," said Ellen, and her body turned towards the car, but she seemed to be waiting for something-some rea.s.surance, possibly, that it was all right to go. Frida didn't move towards Ellen or the house. She gave the impression that she had grown on this spot, from tender root to woody trunk, and would never be persuaded to leave it; nor would she, for that matter, release Ruth.

"Drive safely, won't you," said Frida, in a tone indicative of her merry indifference to Ellen's well-being.

"Goodbye, Ruth," Ellen said, and although she hesitated again, with one leg in the car and the other foot on the ground, she still sat down and drove away and was swallowed up by the gra.s.ses.

With Ellen gone, Frida's bravado vanished. She wept. Could this be true-Frida weeping? Ruth held her-was really held by her, but in a clinging way-and she watched Frida the way Harry used to watch a fire he was building: with a feeling that he had no real control over proceedings but should probably be on hand for emergencies.

"I thought I'd lost you," Frida sniffed. "I thought you were gone for good. How long have you been planning this?"

Now she mastered herself and held Ruth at arm's length. Her eyes were a damp, foggy red, and her face had puffed into a new and compa.s.sionate shape, but she shook Ruth a little at the shoulders and pulled her close into another airless clinch. "Come on," she said. "What were you up to?"

Ruth, smothered, only shook her head.

"Who did you see in town, hey?" Now Frida was walking them into the house. "Did you plan to meet Ellen? Who else were you chatting to?"

When they reached the front hall, Frida released Ruth against the coatrack before locking the door and leaning against it with small exhalations that still managed to lift her chest to her chins.

"No one," said Ruth. She stood nestled among the winter coats, which hung all year in the hall and gave off a stale, resentful smell. There was the vaguest odour, too, of Harry-just a fugitive whiff. Ruth thought she might have stood among the coats after he died, searching out that smell. "Only Ellen. I b.u.mped into her outside the chemist. Wasn't that a lovely piece of luck?"

"Just lovely," said Frida. "Just absolutely darling."

Frida seized Ruth's purse and reviewed it in a businesslike way.

"Oh! And the Sausage King," said Ruth, proffering the white parcels. She antic.i.p.ated a scolding for omitting the Sausage King, but Frida only straightened her shoulders as if she needed to rea.s.sert her own majesty.

"Now listen," she said, "I'm going to get this over with. There's been a small accident while you were out, but don't worry. Hardly any damage done. This way-it's the kitchen."

Ruth followed her down the hall.

There had been a fire in the kitchen: a small, blackish, crawling kind of fire, apparently, because the kitchen hadn't burned. Instead it seemed to have expired, having first given up on something-some former dignity, some presumed usefulness-before slumping into despair. Dark streaks spread up the wall from the oven as if painted by a brush of smoke, and the smell was intense-the comforting fug of a house fire, mingled with something bitter and almost salty. Sooty water puddled the floor.

"Oh," said Ruth.

"I'm sorry," said Frida. She didn't seem to be apologizing so much as imparting information. "I went crazy when I couldn't find you-I forgot I had oil on the stove."

Ruth considered the stubbed kitchen. "What do I do?"

"What d'you mean?"

"How do I fix it?" Ruth supposed she would have to fix it.

"You don't fix it. I fix it. Like I fix everything."

"That's what you're here for," said Ruth.

"Yeah, yeah," said Frida. "Now take a seat. I can't believe you, running off like that. What am I going to do with you?"

She began to bustle in the kitchen. Ruth sat in her chair and felt weighed down by grat.i.tude for Frida, who fixed everything. It was as if something heavy and warm had been placed on her lap. Then a thought came to her, and she said, "But what were you cooking?"

"What now?" called Frida, as if her head were buried at the bottom of some inconvenient cupboard, among linens, when in fact she was only putting the butcher's parcels in the fridge.

"What were you cooking when the oil caught fire?"

Frida sighed and stalled behind the fridge door. "Fish fingers," she said.

"Oh."

"Why, Sherlock, do you want to see the box? Do you want to check the garbage?"

Ruth laughed. "I only wondered."

Frida ran into the dining room, sat at the table, and surprised Ruth-seemed to surprise herself-by beginning to cry again. What a fragile Frida she was today. Ruth felt so sad for her.

"This is too much for me," Frida said in a voice entirely unaffected by the weeping; but Ruth could see the tears on her face and the despairing lift to her shoulders.

"Oh, no, no," Ruth said. "Don't cry, dear. Everything's lovely. Everything's fine."

Then Frida lowered her head onto the table. Her hairstyle seemed perfectly designed for this maneuver because it remained fixed in a rigid bun. Ruth could undertake a detailed inspection of the back of Frida's neck. It was smooth, except for one thick fold that traversed it like a defensive moat. Her skin was paler than Ruth remembered it, which worried her momentarily; she scrutinized Frida's arms, which were pale, too, and sallow; then she remembered that winter was barely over. Everyone paled in the winter. Ruth saw that Frida's hair was currently a nutty brown, a rich yuletide colour, which matched her lighter shade perfectly. How clever she was, and how fa.r.s.eeing. But fish fingers? In oil? And in the morning?

Frida looked out at Ruth from the cradle of her pastel arms. "You're too good to me. Last night-"

"Now listen, my dear," said Ruth, who had an idea that a kind severity was called for in response to such statements. "There's no need to cry. There are plenty more fish in the deep blue sea."

Ruth found it easy to say these things from the safety of her chair. It was a little like recovering a language she'd forgotten she knew and still wasn't entirely sure of the sense of.

Frida lifted her head from the humid table; her face was blotted and wet, but she had stopped crying. "You're a funny old thing."

Ruth didn't feel funny, but she smiled and smiled.