Pearl returned around nine. By then, I’d fed and bathed the girls—who’d been in dire need of a wash judging by their smell—and settled them down in the only bed in the shack, Pearl’s, with a story. I’d helped myself to her whisky, too, and sat dozing by the fire with the dog at my feet. Despite the haphazardly arranged, dubiously clean state of the place and overall shabbiness of the furniture—dog hair whorls in the corners of the floor, stained patches on the couch—it felt pleasant out there in the bush, far enough away from the hotel, the roadhouse, the town altogether to forget they existed, and without the presence of Pearl I relaxed, almost contented. She then pulled up outside and ruined it all.
Her heavy steps on the deck, the door opening and closing with a slam, and I was convinc
