Rose hears the chattering of lorikeets before realising it is just the dishwasher clinking—cleaning the crescent moons of lipstick from the champagne flutes, the thumbprints of old colleagues, perhaps lovers, from the whisky tumblers. The table is covered with flowers, still wrapped in cellophane, from yesterday’s housewarming. Greeting cards that will never come out again rest in their bright white envelopes on the mantelpiece. Rose has given up on keeping anything but the basics since the day she came home to find the few leftover bricks of her old house too hot to hold, the wheel rims of Max’s Mercedes melted and running in silver strands through the ash of the ridge.

The dishwasher cycle finishes and Rose opens the machine to a wave of steam. Gold-rimmed glasses dangle from the inbuilt racks and rows of china-handled dessertspoons fill the small cutlery basket. Rose picks up one of the floral plates before sliding it back in between the others, sighing as she shuts the dishwasher door again with a tap. She looks out into the front yard, still dotted with empty bottles and red paper plates—some smeared with relish, some curled or folded into neat quarters. Rose had counted more than a hundred people at the party, all coming in through the new pine double-doors holding wrapped gifts—eyebrows held a little too high, lips pressed together in pity. A lot of the visitors, though, had just dropped by quickly—due to obligation, maybe a little curiosity. Rose received three potted fruit trees, a tub of basil and some tiny glass pots of bush tomato seeds. ‘To plant, whenever you’re ready,’ Jill Harris had said, her painted eyelids never quite opening all the way. ‘We all just love the new house, Rosemary, but you need a garden to match.’