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‘I brought chopsticks too,’ said Amy. ‘So we don’t burn ourselves.’
‘Great idea,’ said Joey, and busied himself pulling out half the wood and pinecones Daisy had crammed into the tiny hearth and building a little pyramid of kindling. ‘How about some paper to get this fire lit?’
‘I could sacrifice a drawing from my art book,’ said his niece. ‘Since it’s a sleepover and all. There’s a drawing of Dobbin in there where his legs are too long that I’d be prepared to destroy for a marshmallow.’
He chuckled. ‘Or you could pass me the newspaper from the coffee table.’
Two hours later he’d carried a comatose eight-year-old to the spare room and tucked her in on the bottom bunk, and Gus had been only too happy to jump up, turn a few boisterous circles, then nest himself at her feet.
Joey returned to the front room to say goodnight but found Daisy sitting by the fire, pouring herself a glass of shiraz from a bottle which she must have had stashed in her bag. ‘Um … I thought we said it was bedtime.’
She took a hefty slug. ‘I thought you said wine time.’
His early morning start was looking less and less fun. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘Pour me an inch.’
Daisy patted the floor in front of the couch, and he sat down next to her, crossing his socked feet out in front of him. The fire had settled into a deep orange-gold, the exact colour Amy had insisted on painting his fingernails.
That’s when he noticed Daisy had a bulldog clip full of paper in her hand which was—shit—a secret. That would teach him not to tidy up before uninvited sleepover guests popped in.
‘You want to tell me what this is?’ she said.
‘Just a little side project.’
She squinted at the cover page, which had about eighty-six titles written on it then crossed out. The one he liked when he was feeling optimistic wasThe Back Paddock Investor. The most apt wasLessons from the Dumb-Ass Finance Guy Who Had It All but Lost It.
‘You writing another book?’
‘It’s only scribbling at this stage. I don’t really have time to devote to another project.’ And his publisher had dropped him, so yeah, there was that. He took a sip of the shiraz and winced. He’d drunk vinegar that tasted better. ‘Where did you get this plonk?’
‘The five-dollar bin at the bottlo.’
Well. If there were leftovers in the morning, he could use it for paint stripper. Nail varnish remover. Waste not, want not now he was a farmer.
‘Can I ask you a question, Joey?’
‘Sure.’
‘What did you love so much about living in Sydney?’
He risked another sip of shiraz. ‘I guess I loved how busy it was. People everywhere but all of them strangers, and the city never slept. It was …. a buzz, being caught up in that.’ He could remember how thrilled he’d been when he scored a job at the Rubric Investment Bank. He’d walked through its offices and admired the logo gleaming in brass on the conference room wall, the viewthrough carpet-to-ceiling glass to the ferries charging purposefully in and out of Darling Harbour.
‘Mum was so proud of you, making a career for yourself. Dad was, too, when he wasn’t moaning about corporate greed. He even bought a copy of your book, did you know that?’
He snorted. ‘For real? Robbo? For a doorstop, maybe. I can’t see Dad getting a lot out ofThe Bondi Beach Investor.’
‘No, but he read it anyway. For you, Joey. Because it was important to you.’
A doorstop was all his bestselling book was good for now. Who’d take advice from a bloke who’d tanked his own share portfolio? And Patty and Robbo wouldn’t be so proud if they knew half the reason he’d cleared off to Sydney was to get away from everyone in Clarence. He’d felt so guilty every time someone hugged him in the street and called himpoor Joeyand told him how brave he was.
He wasn’t freaking brave.
And yeah, sure, there’d been all that other stuff. Hehadbeen tired of being everyone’s big brother, and ferrying his siblings to school, and having to do his homework by kerosene lantern when the solar grid had run out of juice, and having to grow freaking veggies, and work at his mum’s market stall, and feel grateful for the 1970s tuxedo his dad had loaned him for his school formal.
That thing hadruffles.
‘Mum says …’
Daisy paused, so he turned and frowned at her. ‘Mum says what?’ ‘That you left because being here reminded you of Natalie.’ ‘That’s not totally wrong,’ he said. But about ninety per cent wrong.
