The plant, the girl with the rose, the easel, the table. All gone. Not as bad as you think, her nephew said.

  She drifts into a druggy sleep, wakes to the golden late-afternoon light and doesn’t see, on her bedside table, the cherry-sized lump of blu-tack she has opened her eyes to for over a decade. Dried out, sandy-textured, barely stuck to the surface, but at the same time always the fresh, minty-blue strip from when Lena was six and had a habit of tapping her tiny fingers on the desk during class. Another child had told her to STOP IT, LENA and the teacher had repeated the order, though more gently; it was distracting the other children. Lena’s fingers tapped Nic’s arm as she told the story. No rhythm to it, index and pinkie and ring and pointer and thumb playing over her skin in a different order each time. Mummy told her to squeeze her hands into fists instead of tapping. Mummy didn’t understand that moving her hands helped her to concentrate and sit still.

  Nic spotted the new packet of blu-tack on the coffee table. She had bought it to replace the old pack, which she had used up the week before putting another of Lena’s drawings on the wall of her room. She opened it, stripped a full piece off its white paper dressing, balled it up and handed it to Lena, who understood immediately what it was for. Her stubby fingers pressed and kneaded, the crease between her eyebrows eased and then disappeared. Listen, she said, and Nic did and smiled, because it was silent, or close enough.

  Michelle called the next night. Another child had loudly accused Lena of being a thief, of taking blu-tack from the teacher’s desk. The teacher called Michelle, stressed that she wasn’t concerned about the value of what may or may not have been taken, only that Lena may or may not have been sneaking around and going through her desk and could Michelle please talk to her daughter about whether she did or did not do this thing that—let me stress—is not about the blu-tack itself but about a possible issue with sneakiness and lying.

  Nic confirmed that she had, as Lena’d sworn, given her the damn blu-tack. And excuse me, but what kind of nasty, punishing place was this classroom where anxious little girls were publicly shamed and accused for rolling a piece of household adhesive worth all of ten cents!

  And for once—literally probably the only time ever—Michelle agreed with her. Was furious on Lena’s behalf. Made one of the trips to the principal’s office she would later become known for. Demanded the teacher apologise to Lena in front of the class and, in fact, thank you very much, congratulate her for finding something so quiet and non-disruptive to help her sit still and concentrate.

  The teacher did all that and then let Lena take a lump of whichever play-doh colour she liked best to roll between her fingers in class. It had been a tough decision, because she loved purple more than anything, but if she chose that she might spend too long looking at it instead of concentrating, and so she chose her second favourite colour—yellow—and when she rolled it between her fingers she felt both calm and proud because she had solved a problem all on her own.

  She told Nic all this when she came over the following Saturday and what killed Nic, just killed her, was that the darling, earnest little thing actually handed the blu-tack back to her! Said, So you can have this one back now, Aunty Nic. Can you believe the sweetness of that child?

  Did the woman she’d grown into remember any of this when she’d scraped it up and discarded it? If she had, would she even care?

  LENA

  Lena had walked too quickly and arrived at the bar both early and sweaty. She went to the bathroom, wiped off the red lipstick which she had felt screaming from her lips the whole way here. She splashed her face with cold water, then sank into the plush armchair in the corner of the bathroom breathing in the rose oil-scented air.

  A night she’d not thought of for years came back to her. Mum’s husband had a big fiftieth birthday bash in the function room of a fancy Brisbane hotel. Lena had been allowed to invite Lou and the two of them tolerated the cringiness until after the speeches and then snuck out. They needn’t have bothered sneaking; Mum and the Dick were too busy tipsily dirty dancing across the silver balloon-strewn dance floor to have noticed anything.

  They found the hotel bar, strode in like it was something they did every bloody night of the week. It was a walk, an attitude, they’d rehearsed many times at the clubs in the Valley. It had never worked before. Always there was a bouncer stepping in front of them, demanding to see ID, rolling his eyes or not even bothering with much reaction before he sent the obvious sixteen-year-olds away. Here, there was no bouncer, just three model-gorgeous barmen in old-fashioned waiter outfits gliding silently back and forth behind a marble bar. They didn’t even glance in the direction of the girls. No one did.

  Score! Lou whispered, chin-pointing at a booth in the far corner of the room.

  Lena’s instinct was to turn and run back to the party before anyone noticed her Kmart black ankle boots, tight red mini-dress and cropped vinyl jacket from Supré. Before anyone noticed that her lipstick was Priceline and her hair Just Cuts. In the function room with all the Dick’s gross bogan friends, she’d felt too classy to bear. Now, in this room full of actually classy people, she knew she looked like a hooker from a nineties movie. But more awkward.

  Lou urged her on to the booth and she felt a little better sinking into the plush fabric and barely candlelit shadow. Almost invisible here. Good. Then she read the drinks menu. Might as well go buy myself a new car while I’m at it, she said to Lou. Seriously, though, the first cocktail she liked the look of was a third of Mum’s weekly grocery budget. While they were still flicking back and forth through the menu in the hope of finding something under twenty bucks, a hot barman plonked two enormous glasses filled with pink bubbles and garnished with what looked like fairy floss in front of them. A gift from the gentlemen, he said, like it was a frickin’ movie. He gestured towards two men in suits taking up half the length of the bar with their widespread knees. They were not as old as the Dick’s mates, but not too far off. One of them raised his glass at her, mouthed, Enjoy, darling.

  The drink was revolting—raspberry cordial mixed with lighter fluid—but they drained them, tongued the sugary floss on the rim. The men sent over a bottle of champagne next, and Lou had the presence of mind, and the guts, to refuse. One of the men came over then, leant far, far over the table, his freckled hands planted flat in the space between Lou and Lena. Listen, this isn’t a transaction, ladies. We’ve had a win today. Bonuses coming in, big ones. Let us share the luck around, hey?

  So they said, yeah, and, thank you, and started on the champagne, which must have been expensive because it tasted like air and happiness. As Lou shook the final drops into her glass, the man returned, his mate with him. They slid into the booth without asking, one trapping each of them against the wall. Seconds later another bottle arrived. The girls made eye contact, giggled, kicked each other under the table. Why not? they said to each other telepathically. Why not drink this delicious air and listen to these men talk absolute shit? Better than drinking flat Coke and listening to some different old men talk absolute shit down the hall.

  They drank a lot. At one point the man squished next to Lena took her hand and ran it up the inside of his thigh. Armani, he said. You can feel the quality, can’t you?

  Just so you know, said Lou, who was always watching out for her, and had leant across and tapped the man’s arm so he dropped Lena’s hand. Just so you know, she’s not going to root you. The man held up his hands, mock offended. Hadn’t crossed my mind. Lena had Lou’s spirit and the delicious air in her now, said, Not gunna blow you either, just to be clear. Both men cackled with laughter at that. Same here, by the way, Lou said to the one next to her, which made them laugh more. The man next to Lena put his hand on her back, the bare skin up near her neck. She liked how it felt was the truth, but she shook him off, because she might have been rat shit but she wasn’t stupid. It was possible these men didn’t expect outer suburban teenagers who accepted hundreds of dollars’ worth of alcohol from men in Armani suits to pay them back with their bodies. For all she knew, a couple of hundred bucks to them might be like twenty cents to her. Sometimes she tossed that much into a homeless man’s bowl on the street outside the 7-Eleven and it had never occurred to her that he should lick her out in return. So, yeah, maybe this was obligation-free generosity. But just in case, she would not let his hand linger on her skin. Just in case, she would excuse herself to the bathroom. She wanted to ask Lou to come with her, but she was engaged in a savage argument about the quality of the music playing in the bar with the man beside her (Lou said the music made her want to shoot herself; the man said she should do that but in shame at her terrible taste) and waved a hand at Lena to go ahead.

  The bathroom was nicer than any she’d seen in her life. Maybe any room at all. She sat so long on the padded stool in front of the softly lit mirror that Lou came looking for her, worried she’d passed out or was yakking. Who knew there were bathrooms like this in Brisbane and that you could sit in their gentle light and barely-perceptible-yet-soul-lifting scent clouds, use their hand lotions and impossibly soft hand towels, all for free? How did people who came to places like this handle ordinary bathrooms with their stiff brown paper towels and ammonia stink? How could you live in the rough and fluoro-lit world once you knew there were places like this? Places like this were why girls her age fucked old men in Armani suits. Why people smashed up luxury shopfronts and dragged their keys down the side of BMWs.

  Sitting in this hotel bar bathroom in Sydney, which was even nicer than the Brisbane one—the padded chair softer than her bed, the light golden—she looked at her hands, turned alien from the harsh chemicals she’d used to clean Nic’s bathroom. Skin rough and splotchy on top while the palms and fingertips were flaky white with angry crimson cuticles. She’d worked so hard, clearing and soaping and rubbing and scraping. When she’d finished, had sat back on her heels drinking water which she had been keeping in the living room fridge but which nonetheless seemed laced with detergent, she was confident the room had never, ever been cleaner. She’d even used a high-end brand of toilet duck (salvaged from the hoard) in the hope the scent would be more floral than chemical. She’d salvaged, too, a fluffy, peach-coloured bath mat with tags still attached, chucking the old one which was caked with dried lotion and soaps and fuck knew what else. She’d replaced the threadbare, scratchy towels on the rack with soft, thick, brand-new ones she found in a Kmart bag under the sofa. And even so, the room was grim and nasty. The cleanest it would ever be and the kind of person who came to hotels like this would take one look and decide to hold their pee in rather than use it.

  Josh was waiting in a dim, narrow booth close to the bar. He was wearing a navy blazer with a crisp pinstriped open-necked shirt beneath it. His hair was freshly cut and immaculately styled to look ruffled. He froze when he saw her, pressed his lips together and raised one hand. The other was wrapped around a half-drunk beer on the table.

  She backtracked to the bar and bought the cheapest beer on the list, taking a huge gulp before she approached Josh again. It was bitter and gassy and made her eyes water, which was a great way to start things off.

  ‘You look amazing,’ he said once she was seated across from him, and it was all she could manage not to tip the beer over his head and leave.

  ‘Thanks. Is that what you were so desperate to say to me?’

  ‘No. Sorry. Lena, I …’ He began tearing a burgundy napkin into thin strips. It must be hard for him, trying to sit still, pretend to focus on her and her alone. As though hearing her thoughts he dropped the napkin, pushed it to the edge of the table, folded his hands in front, looked her in the eyes. ‘I fucked up. I disrespected you and betrayed your trust.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve never regretted anything so much.’

  ‘Same.’

  ‘Not being with you! I could never regret that. It’s why I needed to see you, to talk. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. About us.’

  God, was he for real? She kept her face blank.

  ‘I know you probably can’t forgive me, but can you at least admit that you did have feelings for me? That we were good together.’

  Her body betraying her, the liquid heat flooding her lower belly, replacing the hunger cramps and beer bloat. The warmth spreading out and up, probably turning her face red. Probably making her pupils enlarge. She slugged more beer because she would not lick her lips to salve the sudden dryness there.

  ‘The thing is …’ He picked up the table-talker—$15 cocktails Wednesday and Thursday 4–5pm—smoothed it flat against the table, his hands working the folds out, hard along each seam. ‘The thing is, I’ve been under all this pressure at college. Like, you know the shit that’s been going down, in the news and all. I wasn’t involved in any of it, and you’d think that’d be a good thing, but it put me under suspicion. People were saying I was the leaker. It got so I was piling furniture in front of my door at night, I was so scared they’d come and … I don’t know. Some act of retribution or whatever. I mean, you have no idea the kind of stuff these guys are capable of.’

  ‘I have some idea.’

  He paused in his work, left his hands flat on the table-topper, looked at her properly again. ‘Yeah. That’s what’s so fucked up. I became the monster so the monster wouldn’t hurt me.’

  ‘My heart bleeds for you. Is that it? I’m really busy.’

  ‘Yeah? I wondered about that. You haven’t been at uni, so … I wondered what you were up to, if you were staying away because of me, or—’

  ‘My aunty had an accident and I’m her only family in Sydney. I’ve been taking care of her.’

  ‘Oh. Thank god. Not that your aunt—obviously. I was worried you’d, like, dropped out of uni because of …’

  ‘Do you really think I’d chuck my whole life away because of your bullshit?’

  ‘No, of course not. Sorry. I guess I can be pretty arrogant.’ Those damn hands, raised up now, like the fucking what-can-you-do emoji.

  Lena finished her beer. She needed to walk away. Now.

  ‘How is your aunt doing?’

  ‘Not great.’

  ‘I’m sorry. And it’s only you taking care of her?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Hectic. Can I help at all?’

  ‘Yeah. Delete the video and then leave me alone forever.’

  ‘Lena.’ He looked like he was going to cry, for god’s sake. ‘I deleted it, like, an hour after I posted it. I’ve been going after every fucker I see sharing it. Look!’ He held up his hands, scabbed-over knuckles out. ‘I haven’t punched anyone since I was fourteen, and I’ve been in two fights this week.’

  ‘My hero.’

  ‘I’m not saying that, Lena, Jesus. I’m just trying to show you that I know I fucked up badly. If there was any other way to fix things I would. I’d do anything.’

  My pride fell with my fortunes. Who said that? Someone who understood what it felt like to choose between eating shit once and being covered in it forever.

  ‘There’s this company,’ Lena said. ‘They scrub the internet of stuff like this. Find it all and get it deleted.’

  ‘I’ve heard about that kind of thing. I don’t think it works very well. Impossible to stop the—’

  ‘You know it’s on sydneysluts? My full name, my uni. All up there now.’

  ‘I’ll find who did that. I’ll get it off. I promise. Just … Fuck, I’m so sorry. I can’t sleep with thinking about what I’ve done. I’m going to fix it. I’ll look up that internet scrubbing company. I’ll …’ Tears. Actual frigging tears. He swiped them away with the back of his hand, flinching as his bruised knuckles made contact. ‘Whatever it takes, Lena. I promise.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Okay. I accept your apology and your promise.’

  A smile. Such a smile. ‘Thank you. That’s just … It’s everything, Lena. Everything. Thank you so much. You’re amazing.’

  ‘I need to go.’

  ‘Already? Let me buy you a drink at least. Unless your aunt needs you, of course.’

  ‘She’ll be okay a bit longer, I think.’

  A showy little air-punch. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  While he was at the bar, she turned her phone on, felt the familiar sick drop of her stomach as the screen filled with notifications, shoved it back in her pocket without looking at any of them.

  Josh put a beer in front of her, slid into the booth. ‘Tell me about your aunt. Is she the one from the rose garden, the one who held you after you were born?’

  Ooof! What was this feeling? What was happening right now? Falling and falling while sitting still, bursting and bursting while trying to stop her face from showing any of it. Failing, obviously, by the way his gaze was locking on to hers, his own falling and bursting clear.

  ‘Can’t believe you remember that.’

  ‘Best origin story ever, Harris—of course I remember. So it’s her? The same aunty?’

  Lena nodded. ‘Nic.’

  ‘So you and her have been bonded from the start. No wonder you feel like you need to be there for her now.’

  She was going to burst open and who knew what would come out? There was too much in her and he was too good at knowing it. Oh god. I have to go. I have to go and sit in a pile of sticky dust and throw out other people’s garbage that my aunt has collected. I have to go and clean up after the woman I’ve looked up to my whole life while she cries and rants like a mad person, while she accuses me of theft and betrayal.

  ‘I really do have to go, actually.’

  He touched her hand. Fast, but oh! Damn. ‘Finish your drink at least. Tell me about Aunty Nic. What do the family legends foretell about her?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about her,’ she said.