Out the back of the new house, between the picket fence and a sheet of tin, Kylie found an egg. Her mother and Philip were inside. She heard them arguing and wished she still lived with her father. The yard was long and excitingly littered with fallen grapevines, a shed, lengths of timber and wire and twitching shadows from big trees. It wasn’t a new house, but it was new to her. She had been exploring the yard. The egg was white and warm-looking in its nest of dirt and down. Reaching in, she picked it up and found that it was warm, and something rose in her chest: now she knew what it was to have a secret.

At dinner her mother and Philip spoke quietly to one another and drank from the bottle she was only allowed to look at. Her mother was a tall woman with short hair like a boy. One of her front teeth had gone brown and it made Kylie wonder about her. She knew that Philip was Mum’s new husband, only they weren’t married. He smelt of cigarettes and moustache hairs. Kylie thought his feet were the shape of pasties.