The kettle hissed and Dorothy shook the teapot upside down over the sink until the sodden teabag inside was spat out. She set the tea and four mugs on the table. ‘Out of milk, sorry. But there’s apple cake.’ Dense earthy slabs, the smell carried on the steam from the mugs of tea.
‘Is this your birthday cake?’ asked Susan.
‘Yeah, why not. I remember an amazing chocolate cake at the commune. Vinegar and eggs. Does it still exist, Hungry Creek?’ Dot asked Rena. ‘Are you living there?’
‘Can we borrow a ladder?’ said Rena, coming out of her trance with a static fizz. ‘There are louvres in a downstairs window but it’s too high to get them out.’
‘Sorry?’
‘To Mike’s house. We need to get in.’
The sides of the tea mug were stinging hot. It wobbled slightly as Dot replaced it and liquid slopped onto the table. ‘No. You can’t break in.’
‘Have you got a key?’
‘No. But if he’s not there he’s not there.’
‘I’m worried. What if something’s happened?’ Rena stared at Dorothy, direct. The bones in her face were still strong and beautiful. She looked capable of anything. ‘Like when he got stuck? Like if he hasn’t got his medication?’
‘My mother shouldn’t talk about things like that.’
The girl Susan placed her hands over her ears, closed her eyes and began to hum a song.
‘What if he’s lying there unable to move? Unable to reach the phone?’ Rena said. ‘It’s the louvre window or we bust the front door.’
‘Sorry, but I don’t understand why it’s so urgent.’
Rena jabbed at her own chest. ‘I’m dying.’ It was almost a shout, full of terror.
‘Oh my god,’ Dorothy said. ‘Rena, I’m so sorry.’ She reached across the table to place her palm over the woman’s wide, veiny hand.
‘I need to know if he wants my place at Hungry Creek. She doesn’t.’ A thumb jerked towards her daughter, who was examining the papers on the bench – school permission notices, children’s swimming certificates, a gas bill.
‘So men . . .’
‘Yeah hell, we let men in years ago. If he wants it, there’s an interview process. But I need to know now. We’ve got to get back there tonight. So if he’s home and just not answering the phone or whatever, I want to know. Susan, you’re small enough, your mum can give you a leg-up through the window.’
‘I can tell him to call you.’ Dorothy was still wearing her puffer jacket and another bolt of her own body heat surged through her. ‘Well, I’ve got to go out again,’ she lied. ‘Rena, I’m so sorry.’
The flat battery on the smoke alarm beeped. Something else to do later.
Outside the house Dorothy waited for them to get into the van.
‘Oh, we’ll just hang around a bit to see if Michael shows up,’ Rena said.
Dorothy stared at her. Was she really having a stand-off with a dying hippy? The dog waggled around the back door of Dot’s car, ready to jump in. She imagined, if she drove off on her fake errand, anything to get away from Rena, the child being pushed through the gap between the bathroom louvres. Rena waiting while the girl walked through the dark house with her hands covering her ears, a house that was strange to her. Past Michael’s closed doors and drawn curtains. Looking for the front door, or the back door, any door to open onto the world outside, hoping not to pass an arm on the floor flung out of a doorway. Michael’s enormous body sprawling from the end of it.
‘Aren’t you worried he’s in there,’ Rena persisted, ‘stuck again? I mean, do you look after him or what? You know he’d be crazy not to take Hungry Creek. The world’s going to hell. I’m glad I won’t be around to see it.’
Across the road, a leaf zigzagged the air at dream speed and settled on the roof of Michael’s car, joining the yellowing layer that covered the bonnet too.
‘All right. I’ll do it. Come on,’ Dorothy said to the dog, and clicked her tongue.
The louvre panes were heavy, their edges bumpy and rough, and she had to push down hard on each one to slide it out into the bathroom, gripping tight so as not to have it drop and smash on the floor or the toilet that sat just below, lid down. The glass was thick and possibly unbreakable but still Dorothy was careful as she slid a removed pane out between the remaining slats and lowered it into Rena’s