‘All right, all right!’ Brett Harcourt appeared at the doorway with his hair hanging in his eyes, wearing only a pair of sleep shorts and with blue shadows on his jaw. ‘Doesn’t anyone in this house believe it’s Sunday?’

Nicola said through her laughter, ‘Sorry, but they both have perfect pitch, you know!’

Sasha and Chris leapt off the bed to besiege their father, and presently to partake peaceably of a late breakfast, and then get through the whole traumatic business of being dressed and groomed for an outing without one squabble.

‘There.’ Nicola slung a large bag into the back of the BMW between the children and stood for a moment with her hand on her hip.

She wore a filmy beige and white paisley overshirt and white linen drawstring pants. Her hair was in a simple knot and she had beige canvas rope-soled espadrilles on her feet. She held up a finger for each item. ‘I’ve got two spare sets of clothing, sun-cream, hats, togs, buckets, spades, toys in case they get bored, books—I’ve got the lot.’

She swung herself into the front seat and exchanged a wry glance with her husband, who said, ‘It’s like moving an army.’

‘You’re not wrong. Now listen, kids,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘we’re going to visit Mr and Mrs Mason for lunch. Don’t forget your manners, will you?’

‘I never do,’ Sasha said proudly and pointedly.

“Course you do,‘ Chris responded. ’Who threw a plate of jelly at—?‘

‘That was because he pulled my hair! And don’t forget the time you spat at—’

‘Kids,’ Brett said, mildly enough, but they subsided—as they always did for Brett, Nicola thought ruefully.

‘Wish I had you around more often,’ she murmured with a faint grin, and glanced at him expressively.

Gone was the dishevelment of earlier. He was shaved, his brown hair was orderly and he wore a brown and white striped T-shirt, off-white thin cotton jeans and white deck shoes. The hairs on his arms, she noted, glinted chestnut in the sun.

‘I might not be so effective then—familiarity could dull the edge.’

‘I doubt it. They’re always good for you.’

‘Do you find them such a handful, Nicola?’ he asked after a moment. ‘By the way, I presume I’m forgiven?’

‘For last night?’ She shrugged. ‘Yes. You know I don’t find them a handful,’ she added with more warmth. ‘And on the odd occasion that I do,’ she said honestly, ‘I’ve always got Ellen to fall back on.’ Ellen doubled as housemaid and babysitter, and had been with the children since birth.

‘I just wondered,’ he said slowly, ‘whether they had anything to do with your seeking counselling. Whether you felt tied down, were yearning for a career or something like that,’ he said, before she could speak.

Nicola paused. ‘I never could decide whether I wanted to be a potter, a pilot or a musician—that’s strange, isn’t it? No. It’s not that, Brett.’

‘But what would you do if you left us?’

The question hung in the air—air that rushed by as they drove up the highway past Palm Cove towards Buchans Point with the roof down. And it was a question that affected Nicola suddenly and curiously. Was it because, she wondered, it was the first time Brett had actually asked her? Not in the context of pointing out her lack of purpose in life, or her unwisdom et cetera, but just as a simple, genuine enquiry?

And it came to her with a little stab of shock that perhaps he was entertaining the idea of her leaving...

‘I...I could start my own gallery,’ she said at random. ‘A lot of people are very taken with my pottery.’

‘Anything else?’

She cast around in her mind a little desperately. Before anything presented itself, she remembered suddenly that Brett had gone out the night before, alone, and come home very late. Well after midnight, in fact, as she’d seen on the luminous dial of her bedside clock when the opening and closing of the garage doors had woken her briefly—something she hadn’t recalled until now.

Not that there was anything particularly unusual in it. She often went out with girlfriends, and he didn’t always include her in his socialising, but...had this been a different kind of socialising, with a woman? she found herself wondering. A woman he was serious about? Serious enough to be contemplating putting an end to this marriage of convenience. But what about Marietta? she thought. And...

‘Nicola?’

She jerked her eyes to his to find his gaze narrow and probing, but all he said was, ‘We’re here.’

‘Oh, sorry.’ She shrugged, but it was a long moment before she could tear her gaze away from his. Then she got out of the car and helped the children out.

‘Now, let’s see.’ She straightened Sasha’s pretty sun-dress and smoothed her red-brown curls. ‘You look gorgeous, darling,’ she said, and turned to Chris. ‘Whereas you are very handsome, young man!’

Both children exuded gratification and put their hands into hers, leaving their father to deal with the large bag.

And that was what the Masons, Rod and Kim, as well as their resident guest, saw advancing up the garden path as they opened their front door, causing Kim Mason, in her forthright way, to say, ‘Nicola, dear, welcome! But how can you possibly be old enough to have two children this age?’

‘Oh, she’s not our mother,’ Sasha piped up with a world-weary air. ‘She’s our aunt.’

‘Sasha.’ Nicola frowned down at her. ‘I’m not your aunt, I’m your stepmother. Where did you get that idea?’

‘Excuse me—how silly of me,’ Kim murmured, but Sasha was not to be denied.

‘I ’scussed this with my friend Emma, and we decided you can’t be any kind of a mother, Nicola, because you don’t do the things mummies do.’

“Course she does,‘ Chris said witheringly. ’Who makes us clean our teeth three times a day and washes our ears and makes us eat our crusts?‘

‘That’s not all mummies do,’ Sasha replied with a superior air. ‘They look after their kids’ dads as well. They kiss and cuddle them, and they sleep in the same bed with them—’

‘Sasha,’ Brett said from behind a frozen Nicola, ‘that’ll be enough, thank you.’

‘But what would Chris know about it? He’s only a silly little boy who doesn’t even go to school yet—and that’s why we decided, me and Emma, that she’s got to be an aunt!’ Sasha finished triumphantly.

Instead of falling into a convenient hole that might magically open up at her feet, Nicola had no alternative but to proceed with the day. To pretend as if Sasha had never spoken and ignore the bemusement in their hosts’ expressions, until they hurriedly masked it, gracefully acknowledging the introduction of the other guest—a man of about thirty who was visiting the Masons from Sydney and was in some way related to Kim. His name was Richard Holloway.

Brett did the same, and before long they were seated on a shaded terrace beside the pool, with Ellis Beach below them, stretching northward beside a sparkling sea, sipping aperitifs as the children splashed happily in the water.

As if to make up for the incredible revelations she had unwittingly unleashed, Kim talked non-stop to Nicola while the three men talked cricket.

Then, to Nicola’s relief, Kim drew her husband away to deal with the barbecue and commanded Richard to replenish everyone’s drinks.

Brett said into the sudden silence, ‘All right?’

‘Yes. No. I had no idea...’ Their gazes locked and Nicola found herself going hot and cold again as the truly mortifying thought of people wondering whether she did or didn’t sleep with Brett crossed her mind.

‘No, Nicola, it’s not anything you might be thinking,’ he said, and he scanned the tense way she was sitting. She looked lovely enough to tempt any man, he thought, and then also thought, They’re probably wondering if I’m mad... ‘Because it’s not anyone’s business but our own,’ he added.

‘How...how do you know what I was thinking?’ she asked.

He smiled a little wryly. ‘You looked intensely embarrassed.’