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She glanced around the door again as she heard him clear his throat and admired how splendid he looked, dressed in his undertaker’s garb of striped charcoal trousers with a black frock coat that cinched at the waist and flared into silken lapels. Beneath that he wore his close-fitting waistcoat of the same gaberdine and his shirt and stiffened collar that her mother worked hard to keep so white and starched. The suit was a perfect fit because Henry was tall and trim, so his waistcoat sat flat against his belly and showed off the glint of his fob watch to perfection. Before he left the house of the grieving, he would reach for his shiny top hat and give a short bow of respect. His longish face, which looked especially sombre in repose, added a final flourish of reverence in the moment.

Yes, indeed, Henry Appleby was the funeral director of choice for the people around the Port of Adelaide, although listening to him of an evening she knew the business, which he had grown out of his father’s milk delivery rounds, was changing.

‘We have to adapt and change too, Mae,’ she’d overheard him saying to her mother only the previous evening. ‘There are lots of opportunists moving into our area of work. It’s not as though one has to prove their qualification. Any old Jack the Lad can hang up an undertaker’s sign and accept business.’

‘What will you do?’ her mother had asked, deftly allowing Henry to continue airing his thoughts. Fleur knew her mother had little interest in the funeral business and that her role was to support her father, which was no challenge for Mae. It was obvious in all she did that she adored Henry and knew exactly how to handle him.

‘Well, we have to modernise. We’re the ones with the reputation to protect, so we must get better at every aspect of our business. Do you know what I heard the other day?’

‘What did you hear, my love?’

‘That upstart Johnny Dale – a butcher and small-time criminal – has set up a funeral parlour next to his shop! Suddenly now he’s Mr John Dale, Undertaker.’

Fleur could almost see his disgust like a shadow near him, and heard a few sonorous ticks of the grandfather clock in the hallway before Mae replied.

‘Why does that trouble you, Henry?’ she finally asked in a reasonable tone. ‘Don’t compare yourself to him.’

‘I’m not, Mae.’ Fleur heard exasperation creeping into her father’s tone. ‘Sorry, my love,’ he said, always quick to apologise, ‘but he undertook to prepare the body of that sailor who fell off the ship at the port.’

‘Another drunk one?’

‘Yes. The man’s wife could barely scratch a shilling together, what with looking after three youngsters. The ship’s captain paid but chose the cheapest option. Johnny Dale was laughing in the pub that he hosed down the sailor’s body in the backyard behind the butchery. Poor man’s not even on a slab of ice and I thank heavens it’s not summer. They need to get that fellow into the ground urgently.’

There was another careful pause. ‘Henry, I can remember a time when you did something similar when you were first starting out.’

Fleur heard a snort of derision. ‘Mae Appleby, how could you compare the situation? I washed those bodies with great care—’

‘In the backyard, with a bucket, as I recall. Nothing terribly dignified about that situation.’

Fleur smiled on the stairs. Her mother knew just how to challenge her father without provoking him too much.

‘Ah, Mae, we didn’t have the set-up that we do now, but I still showed them the respect they deserved . . . and I didn’t laugh about it in the pub later.’

‘Indeed. No one would ever question your care, Henry. It’s undoubtedly why you’re in such demand. But everyone starts somewhere, and while I’m not suggesting John Dale is in your league, I would urge you to let your reservations go. You told me that sailor was a good-for-nothing drunk at the best of times and the captain did the right thing by his poor wife. I say we give her some money for those little ones and then you know you’ve done more for that family than any fine burial of their useless father might.’

Fleur heard her father give a grumbling sound in response.

‘You have more than enough work and reputation for ten new undertakers,’ her mother continued. ‘Everyone would choose Appleby’s for their funeral, if they could. Hold that close and don’t allow the newcomers, still needing to find their way and build their business, to trouble you. This Dale fellow won’t last if he’s no good, but he’ll learn and improve if he means to survive in your arena.’

‘Always the voice of reason, my love. You’re right, of course.’

It was Fleur’s habit to sit on the stairs and listen to their unguarded conversations at night. With no brother or sister, she considered them her friends as much as her parents. Besides, Fleur didn’t particularly care for the company of her peers. Children seemed so distractible, often mean to one another; she preferred adults, none of whom were perfect, of course, but she could enjoy a mature conversation with an adult. She had tried but failed to achieve the same with people her own age.

Her mother regularly clicked her tongue at Fleur. ‘You’ll end up being a loner, my darling, if you can’t make friends.’

‘I can make friends, Mum. I choose not to because I think I’d let them down by getting bored. Perhaps it’s because I’m an orphan.’

The remark had made her mother sigh. ‘Fleur, you’re not an orphan. You are an Appleby with two parents who love you. I never wished to know where you’d come from – that made you new and pure for me – but you’re an old soul, that’s for sure.’

Her radiant mother, with her pretty hair that shone red beneath the sun and lightened into a rosy gold come summer, had planted a kiss on Fleur’s head that day. ‘You’re a gift from the gods, child. And we’re blessed to have you.’

Fleur had looked at her mother’s pale complexion and light freckling and wished she had the same colouring, desperate to belong wholly to this wonderful woman from whom she’d never felt a cross word and had experienced only affection. She was the blessed one, to belong to the Applebys; they could not have children of their own and she’d overheard them finally agreeing not to bring another adopted child into their lives, and to concentrate on Fleur.

She remembered another evening she had sat on the stairs, listening to her parents talk softly, this time about the future of their business.

‘Henry, you know I’m not ambitious. I derive all the reward I need from being a good wife to you and a good mother to our little girl. Now, I’d love for you to have had a son to inherit this company, but it’s surely becoming obvious that Fleur is more than capable.’

Peeking out from the shadows of the stairwell, Fleur heard her father’s leather chair creak as he sat back, the low lamplight casting a golden spot to illuminate his helplessly serious countenance. She watched him nod. ‘I won’t deny that. With Fleur I often feel like I’m talking to another adult.’ He sipped from the glass of whiskey he had been cradling in his lap.