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She rang Adam, but her call went straight to voicemail.

She thought of Dan running home through the bush. She thought of ringing him so he could turn around and come back. But that would mean he’d hear the news on his own. She told Katherine on the way out to the car. Then she drove the short way back to Nightcliff.

When Dan saw her in the driveway, he burst into tears and stayed crying all the way back to the hospice.

Hi Dad,

Just thought I’d let you know that Mum died this morning. We’re having the funeral next Tuesday here in Darwin.

Coralie

Hi Coralie,

Nice to hear from you. Any chance you’ll make it down to Canberra on this trip? Jenny and I can’t offer to put you up, but we could recommend you a hotel. Have a think.

Best wishes,

Roger

After the “Roger,” he’d added, in brackets, “Dad.”

That night, Dan disappeared when the sun set.

Coralie walked alone to Taj Curry Indian.

She’d never taken in her mother’s voice, so she didn’t have anyone or anything inside her saying, in a kind way, “You need to eat.” But if a couple of weeks at the hospital had shown her anything, it was that not eating resulted in death.

She ordered butter chicken, basmati rice, raita, and a white wine.

Just a bite will do , she made a voice inside her say.

She felt self-conscious, like Zora as a five-year-old giving dialogue to her dollies.

Saying something like “You must eat” or “Take a rest” or “That sounds hard, poor you”—all that felt natural when she said it to Zora.

When would she have a baby of her own, someone who began inside herself and then came into the world, separate and real, someone she could look after and love, someone she was responsible for and who needed her?

Had her mother felt that way about having her?

She’d never know. Tears were streaming down her face.

The waiter walked up and, without saying anything, put down an inch-thick pile of red paper napkins.

···

It was the morning but still dark when she heard a small commotion outside.

Someone was rattling the flyscreen, and not loudly, but persistently, repeating “Coralie! Coralie!” No one in Darwin knew her except Dan.

Had he locked himself out? She pressed her phone to see the time.

Nearly six. She saw she had some texts from Adam.

If this sends, I’ve landed in Singapore!

Then another, from 5:15 a.m.: I don’t know if you’ll get this, but I’ve landed!

CYK! She ran to the door. He was there—Adam.

He looked ghastly, with dark circles under his eyes.

He smelled like a Pot Noodle. His face, and the V of his chest, gleamed with sweat.

But he was there and smiling at her. He had come!

···

After the funeral, Adam borrowed the car and drove them to a mystery destination two hours out of the city.

It was a mild surprise to Coralie when the sleek multilane main roads became narrower, more bumpy, and lined with a thick red dust. Before them, all around them, the sky was wide, blue, and unlimited.

She had existed in the hospital and the hospice for what felt like all her life. Seeing so much sky almost hurt.

Adam pointed. “What are these beautiful trees?”

“Who cares?”

“Good question.”

“I’m not an Australian author. Do people who know the names of trees become writers? Or do writers feel like…” She took a deep breath to carry on. “They have to learn names of trees?”

“Fuck knows.” Adam nodded out the window. “Fuck you, trees.”

She fell into a pit of silence for a few kilometers. After a while, she said, “Obviously they’re better than English trees.”

“Obviously. I’m just going to check my phone—Dan wrote me some notes. Oh, we’re so close, hold on.” He pulled off the road and they bumped and crunched along a track, first gravel and then dirt. “Here we are.”

“Can you take a photo and bring it to me in the car?”

“Let’s walk very slowly. Come on.”

She thought they were in the middle of nothing and nowhere.

But, as they kept walking, the track turned into a boardwalk and a wide green space opened up—that vast blue sky again, almost eerie—and soon there loomed into view something even spookier, a mass of tall, sand-colored shapes that could hardly be part of nature, being evenly spread over a large distance and all facing the same direction.

“Like your books—in the Broadway Market flat, remember?” Adam said. “Termite mounds.”

“They’re so big.”

“Two meters tall.” He looked at her slyly. “My height.”

She laughed out loud, just briefly, for the first time since her mother had died.

“Have some water,” he said back in the car. “We’re going to one other place.”

“Are you going to be watching me? For my reaction? I don’t think I can act surprised.”

“You don’t have to be or do or say anything at all.”

After a while, they pulled into a car park. As she readied herself for the effort of getting up, she could sense him hustling and fussing in the boot for whatever he had stowed there. “A little walk—it’s worth it,” he said. “According to Dan, and Google.”

The path became a raised boardwalk taking them down, down, deep into thick, green rainforest. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get back up.”

“I’ll help you. We’re nearly there. Look.” In the thickest part of the monsoon forest, water plummeted down a sandstone gorge. “Florence Falls. That’s where we’re going, where the water ends.”

She leaned over the safety barrier and gazed down to where, far away, through the canopy, there was a hint of navy blue.

“I’ve got your swimsuit in the bag,” Adam said. “And my swimsuit. And some for any crocodiles who’d like to join us. Don’t worry, there aren’t any around here. That’s a fact.”

At the bottom of the gorge, she nearly cried at the beauty of the water.

Almost all in shade and so clean it smelled like rain.

Only a few other people were swimming, slowly breaststroking to the misty haze where the waterfall met the pool.

Coralie and Adam changed into their swimsuits and piled their stuff behind a tree.

Closer to the water it seemed to change from navy to green.

The sandstone in the shallows glowed gold.

They crept carefully to the edge, holding hands to balance on the rocks.

They sat down, dangled their legs, and pushed off into the pool.

Afterward, she couldn’t remember what they’d talked about in the water, or if they’d talked at all.

But after their swim, she was able to smile, and to eat a bit again, and (when they got back to London) to unpack her bags, place an Ocado order for groceries, inhabit the new kitchen, cook, and properly eat.

She could touch Adam, be touched, kiss again, have sex, laugh.

She had to remember—it was her mother who’d died, not Coralie. Coralie was still alive.

···

It was strange, though, to empty all the boxes in the sitting room and make order from their jumbled contents, to flatten them out, and to line them up for Adam to take to the big recycling bins near the cake shop, because the box (inside) where she kept her feelings about her mother also felt empty, and had felt empty for a long time, and if she weighed it, it felt like nothing, and if she looked inside (this was all metaphorical), it looked like nothing, but still the box refused to be broken down or gotten rid of; it remained a fucking useless void in a box, so she did what any normal person would do: put it in the attic (still a metaphor) to deal with it some other time.