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She had given a sound of delighted awe at the sky. ‘Tom, will you look at that!’ she said, even though his attention was already riveted on the same spectacle. ‘It looks like a peacock’s tail. Remember that picture I showed you?’

He nodded as she glanced over at him.

‘Well, the colours in the sky are shaped like the fan of the peacock.’ She pointed. ‘I can just see the last tip of the sun, like a fiery halo. And it’s throwing those burnished golden-striped feathers towards us.’

‘I wish I could touch them,’ he’d replied.

‘That’s a mix of cirrus and cumulus, do you remember?’

He had nodded but had told a fib; he couldn’t remember which type of cloud was which. She knew so much about lots of things. She was the clever one, and he often sensed that his father felt awkward around her knowledge. Tom had never thought them well suited, but as long as his father was in her presence, his mother was laughing. As young as he was, he sensed their love and that was enough, wasn’t it?

‘You’re so like your father, Tom. Handsome and awfully taciturn.’

He hadn’t known that word. And his eloquent mother liked to use words like this. He figured it must mean quiet, because that’s what he was. He didn’t feel a need to be noisy like his father; he preferred to observe, to speak when there was something to be said. Was that taciturn? Perhaps. His father wasn’t quiet. He’d never considered his father handsome either and had never heard him described that way, but he had liked the compliment all the same.

But now Tom understood. She hadn’t been referring to Vern, but Tom’s biological father, who had obviously been handsome . . . and taciturn.

Tom returned to his recollection, which he found comforting. Moira had explained the differences between the clouds. ‘The slightly puffy ones are cumulus and they’re sitting below the sketchy cirrus.’

‘They look like inkblots,’ he remembered saying, hoping to keep her engaged.

It had worked. Moira Catchlove had laughed and being the one to prompt it lifted his spirits. ‘They do; well noted, Tom.’ He could even remember how she’d clutched her hand around his shoulder and hugged him close, as though only the two of them mattered. ‘The colours are so beautiful they make my heart ache.’

That was his mother neatly summarised. She spoke like this often, especially just before she was about to cry. He couldn’t have that.

‘Shall we mark off another day, Mum?’ he’d suggested, leaping nimbly down from the tree, hoping to distract her.

He’d watched her look back at him with damp eyes. ‘Yes, Tom, let’s do that. And hopefully we’ll have news of Vern by tomorrow.’

Now that Tom had a certain amount of distance from life in the outback, he could look at it with some amazement. Surely it was the last place on the earth that anyone should want to live, and yet here he was. This was home. His enquiring mind had learned from his father and some of the other adults who moved through his life that, long before the Europeans and British had arrived, the original people of the region had used highly prized ochre for their art, as well as for painting their bodies, and sometimes even as protection from the ferocious sun. There had been Chinese folk in the region – Tom wished he had met some of them – but they had left by the time he’d reached adulthood. Now the town had Afghan people, like Gool Mahomet, who led long, snaking camel trains across the northern border. Tom’s own folk were British, his father Scottish and his mother’s people originally from Hampshire, in the south of England. The climate did not suit either.

‘We’re at your stop, mate,’ the bus conductor said, interrupting his thoughts.

‘Oh, thanks very much,’ Tom said, flicking him a grin.

‘Looks like you’ve had a rough trot, mate.’

Tom nodded. ‘A misunderstanding. I was the wrong fella,’ he added, feeling those words resonate.

‘Ouch,’ someone else, also moving downstairs to alight, joined in.

‘I’ll be right soon enough,’ Tom assured them, and lifted a hand to wave farewell to both. As he walked away, he tried to disguise his limp, which was nothing to do with his legs but the sharp and shooting reminder that came from his ribcage with each step.

He looked around to get his bearings. He was on Wakefield Street, and now crossed the wide road, turning to face a shopfront called Central Motors. This is what he had hoped to see, according to the directions he’d been given. So, not lost yet, he thought wryly. A line of cars were parked on an angle in front of the buildings but where he stood, the cars were parked parallel to the curb. He recalled word for word what the bus conductor had told him: ‘If you’re facing Central Motors, keep walking to the right and you’ll come to a wide street called Pulteney. Turn right there, cross over Angas and the next main street you come to is Carrington. You’ll need to work out the house number, but it’s not such a long street that you can get into much trouble.’ The conductor gestured with his hand as he continued. ‘If you go too far, you’ll do a sort of zigzag on East Terrace around the East Parklands. Just remember, Adelaide was built on a simple grid. You can always find your way back.’

Tom headed east and found Pulteney, which felt like a main road; it cut through the city north to south. Carrington Street was only a minute or so away by his reckoning, and despite the limp and the aches, he soon found himself standing in front of a familiar two-storey residence that appeared as grand now as it had two decades ago.

He felt vaguely sick to be back here, and memories began flooding in of the day he’d arrived to such a cheerless welcome. His single bright memory of the experience was Fleur, and he leaned on the knowledge that without that awful experience, they’d never have met, fallen in love, or have been planning their life together.

Be grateful for every good thing in your life, Tom, his mother had told him. Because it was said so often, it had tended to flow over him, but now he focused on it. Every good thing was Fleur. And while he couldn’t be grateful for the sorrows of his life, he felt the push and pull of destiny that every sad event had led him further along this path to rediscovering Fleur.

He squared his shoulders, ignoring the pain it caused, and rapped on the door.

It took an age to be answered. A man with rolled-up shirtsleeves opened the door. He looked distracted and had a burning cigarette between his fingers. ‘Yes?’ Before Tom could speak, he held up a hand. ‘Ah, no travelling salesmen, please. I thought we’d told every one of you enough times, although I don’t recognise you, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.’

‘I’m not a salesman,’ Tom said bluntly.

‘Actually, you look like you’re a boxer,’ the man replied with the slightest of sneers. ‘But whatever you are selling, we don’t need it, thanks.’