He stands up and holds her for a while and she feels his body tremble.

“Come on,” she says quietly.

“Tommy?”

“He’s working at the Union. Won’t be home until ten. Let’s go in.”

Dominic shakes his head, seems like he needs fresh air.

She leaves the groceries on the porch and takes his hand. “Then let’s walk.”

They cross over to the park and she fights the shivers from this early August night. “I think he’s at breaking point,” she tells him, as though he’s asked. “He came to me four weeks ago with ten stitches in his head.”

Silence.

“Drugs. Bit of speed. Heaps of weed. Hanging out with a bunch of dickheads.”

She can’t see him in the dark, but she knows he’s gutted.

“He’s working, though,” she continues. “With Bob Spinelli’s kid and Stani’s niece. And that can’t be a bad thing.”

They sit on the swings for a while, not talking. In the park where they used to hang out on Sundays with Jacinta and Anabel and Lucia and Abe and their kids. Georgie was the picnic instigator. She’d have all the food and picnic gear under control so there’d be no backing out and no excuses about it being too much of a hassle. In summer they’d stay there until the sun came down. Tom and Dominic could kick a ball around for hours and not get bored. Even without Sam, it didn’t take much to make her happy. It had been the unspoken deal between her and Jacinta, years back when Dominic’s girl came into their lives. It’s where his other girlfriends had failed. Share her brothers and Georgie would be loyal for life. Jacinta got that, smart girl. Georgie missed her sister-in-law these days as much as Dominic. She longed for her niece, Anabel, with an anxiety that a phone call every second night couldn’t soothe.

They return to the house and Dominic grabs the groceries and follows her to dump the bags in the kitchen and then they settle his things in the front room that doubles as a study. When he sits on the futon, his eyes find hers and for once in their lives they have nothing to say to each other.

“I’ll make you something to eat,” she says quietly, walking out.

Later that night Georgie hears the front door open, and she comes out of her room and walks down the stairs to where they stand in the corridor staring at each other. Tom and Dominic. Same height. Same bog Irish looks courtesy of Tom Finch. Say something, Dom, she wants to shout. You’ve always had something to say. Tell him you’re sorry you let him down but you’re human. Tell him you’ll work hard to make this right. You’re a union man, Dom. The person who can get dialogue going between two opposing sides.

But Dominic says nothing and Tom pushes past him and takes the stairs two at a time, as if to get as far away as possible.

When Tom gets to work on Monday morning, he notices that despite not getting his footy tips in on time, he’s kept his place in the top three. The only person he imagines getting them as accurate as him is Mohsin the Ignorer.

“Mate, did you fill out my footy-tipping sheet?” he asks when he sits down.

Mohsin ignores him and Tom wants to spit chips. When Mohsin the Ignorer finally looks at him, Tom can’t hold back.

“What’s your fucking problem?”

Mohsin has the audacity to look taken aback and Tom just bars him with his own look and goes back to work.

Like he does most afternoons at the Union before his shift, he stands at the door of the back room, watching Francesca and Justine negotiate their compilation. Each time, they acknowledge him with a nod before going back to the music. Once or twice he suggests a shift in key or a need for more force in a bend, but mostly he just watches as Justine plays her accordion and Francesca works with the lyrics and scribbles down the corrections.

Today Francesca looks up at him again, and he senses it’s an invitation to let him come in and listen.

“It’s going to be hillbilly,” Justine explains, as if he had asked. “Harmonica, accordion, and guitar. Bit like ‘Crazy Train,’” she adds, referring to a Waifs piece they used to do.

“We’ve called it ‘I Met You at the Cornerstone on the Highway to Bedlam,’” Francesca says.

He thinks about the title for a moment and nods, kind of liking it, really.

“Go on,” he says. “Read me the rest.”

“Only if you commit to playing on the compilation.”

Francesca has that arrogant air of being in charge. It still amazes him how they could have been misled by her personality in Year Eleven. It’s what depression does to a person; it changes them completely.

“You invited me in to listen,” he argues.

“It’s very confronting to have you listen to my lyrics,” she explains. “You’ll be critical and you’ll snicker. If you’re going to be a critical snickerer, I’d prefer that you pay with a bit of guitar playing.”

“And harmonica,” Justine says, trying the first line in another key. He always loved watching her fingers fly over the little black bass dots. Their best times on stage were when they dueled.

“I’m not good enough to do harmonica and guitar at the same time,” he says, still irritated that he’s at their mercy.

“Then work on it.”

Francesca flicks through her notepad and reads out some of the lyrics.

“I met you at the cornerstone on the highway to bedlam.

Walked with you to the pinnacle, along that ledge to hell,

Traveled along the passageway of all things aching,

But would crawl with you if you wanted me to

On the steeple point to hope.

So we can tip the stars and hold the moon,

Graze the sun, but make it . . .”

She glances toward the doorway and whispers “soon” to end the chorus in rhyme. It’s clear she doesn’t want Anti-rhyme Ned to hear.

“I think the chorus could be longer,” Tom suggests, “especially if it’s going to be hillbilly.”

“So we can tip the stars and hold the moon, / Graze the sun, but make it soon. / Come home, Jim, we’re waiting here,” Justine suggests.

Tom and Francesca are nodding and thinking.

“With three cigarettes and a glass of beer!” Ned taunts mockingly from the kitchen.

The three of them exchange looks. “He’s very annoying,” Tom says, taking the lyrics from Francesca. He didn’t realize the song was for Jimmy, but it makes sense really. Jimmy was all bedlam and hell at times. A curse to be around when you just wanted things to be calm. He never played by the rules, which made things too unpredictable most times. Both Jimmy and Tom had been forced to hang out with each other when they attached themselves to the female force. When he met Tara and these girls, he didn’t explain the shit of what was happening at home with his father’s drinking and why he spent so much time with Georgie and Joe. He just sat behind them on the bus home in the afternoon and took advantage of the therapy they dished out to Frankie, whose own home life was falling to pieces. Until being with them made more sense than being with his other mates. It kept him sane, really. It wasn’t until Jimmy Hailler called him on it, not until the crazy bastard had started sitting with him in woodwork classes, that he actually started talking. Jimmy Hailler was a killer of a listener. The guy understood fragmented people.

“Suggestions?”

Francesca and Justine are standing in front of him. Their lyrics are in his hands, and he doesn’t realize until Francesca reaches out to steady the paper, her dark eyes piercing into him, that his hands are shaking.

He thinks for a moment. “Yeah,” he says, but his throat feels croaky, so he clears it.