And in his dreams that night, it’s not just Tara Finke’s voice he hears but Joe’s. So clear. As if they had both just spoken to him the day before. And he wants to stay asleep so he can hear their voices for as long as he can.

“Georgie?” She hears Lucia’s voice as she balances the phone and tries to find the keys to the front door. “We’re in Norton Street. Are you coming down?”

It’s not really a request; it’s a Lucia order. It’s what she specializes in. She has bullying down to perfection. Lucia’s the one that Georgie gets to ring up and complain to if she’s having a problem with a telco or insurance company. Lucia handles the Charbel household of three kids under eight while still doing conveyancing for family and friends. She volunteers for the Saint Michael’s Parents and Friends group, the tuckshop, writes articles for the Law Society, and still seems to have more energy than all of them. On the day of the bombing, when they received word that Joe was on the Piccadilly line between Kings Cross Station and Russell Square at 8:50 a.m., it was Lucia who spoke on behalf of the family outside Georgie’s house. The rest of them could hardly speak. When the press refused to go away, she was the one who shouted, “Can you please respect this family’s privacy, you fuckers!” while shoving between the vultures with her pram. They all used to snicker at the people who made scenes on the six p.m. news. Until someone decided to stick a camera and microphone in front of their dead brother’s father and ask Bill how he was feeling.

“Abe and I have a babysitter,” Georgie hears her say, and she can hear Abe in the background organizing everyone. “You know how rare that is.”

Georgie doesn’t budge from where she’s standing at her front door. “I’m not up to company,” she says. All she has to do is put the key in the lock and she’s home free.

“Come on, Georgie. Jonesy reckons he can hardly remember what you look like.”

“Probably because he’s looking down and text messaging every time I see him,” she says tiredly.

“A little antipasto dish and bread sticks and you’ll be home by seven thirty — I promise. Everyone’s here but you.”

Not everyone. Jacinta’s up north and Dominic’s down south.

“Is Sam going to be there?” Georgie asks.

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Georgie,” Lucia says patiently after a couple of moments. “Despite the fact that we’re not talking about your obvious weight gain, can I be blunt in saying that if you and Sam can exchange bodily fluids, then the rest of us can enjoy both of your company together?”

There’s a standoff. The win/loss ratio has always ended with Lucia slightly ahead. One moment’s hesitation costs Georgie.

“We’re at Scalia’s.”

Sam is smoking his lungs out beyond the glass door of the café, which looks out onto the street, while Lucia and Abe are talking kids’ birthday parties and a dwindling social life. Abe belonged to Georgie and her brother Dominic first. They met at sixteen at an Antioch religious retreat. Abe loves telling the story. How he was the good boy who had never broken a rule in his life until Dominic Mackee offered him a cigarette and said, “How about we nick off tonight? My sister’s coming, too.” Abe said it was as though Dominic was promising him a better life if he followed, and about ten years later Dominic made good on that promise and introduced Abe to Lucia. Then Lucia brought Sam along because they worked together at a law firm and were united by what they called death by conveying. Dominic and Sam hit it off in an instant and Georgie ran after Sam for a year before he finally figured out how he felt. They spent the next seven years together until Georgie called a break and then things fell well and truly apart and everyone got caught up in the ricochet.

“Four parties in one weekend”— Lucia’s counting with her fingers —“McDonald’s, bowling, Jamberoo, and a disco party.” Lucia’s sister Bernadette joins them, squeezing between Georgie and Jonesy. Jonesy’s the baby of the group, who’s taught with Abe for a couple of years.

“So we said to Daniel, ‘Honey, no clowns, no jumping castles, nothing. Just good-old-fashioned pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and a piñata, and for the sake of equality, we’ll invite the whole class.’ Very simple,” Abe explains. Abe and Lucia are always a tag team in the way they tell a story.

“But then all these parents, who haven’t been to a backyard party since they were six years old themselves, decided to turn up with the whole family. So we had ninety people at my son’s birthday and no one wanted to go home. We ended up having to feed them.”

“It was like the loaves and fishes,” Abe said.

“No, the wedding feast at Cana, because we had to give them booze.”

Abe and Lucia’s daughter is going to communion classes and they can quote every parable in the Bible these days.

“And Lucia forced me to be in charge of the piñata line,” Jonesy complains.

“He handed out detentions,” Lucia says.

Georgie laughs. “Jonesy, you’re a dick.”

“Next time, you do it, Georgie. Nothing scares me more than a bunch of kids beating up a goat full of lollies.”

“It’s about downgrading,” Abe explains to whoever is listening. “I’ve told the kids there’ll be no Christmas presents this year. We’re donating to an orphanage in Sierra Leone and buying a goat from Oxfam.”

“Lovely,” Georgie says as Abe leaves and joins Sam outside.

When he’s out of listening distance, Georgie and Bernadette send Lucia a look of disbelief.

“Let him think he’s saving the world with that goat,” Lucia says.

Jonesy looks at everyone’s empty glasses and starts working out the round. “You want a beer, Georgie?” he asks.

“No,” Lucia answers for her. “She’ll have mineral water.”

A look passes among them all.

Jonesy taps at the window to find out if Sam and Abe want another beer, and Georgie continues to stare at Lucia. With none of the men around, everything is just about to get more complicated.

“You can’t have pâté either,” Lucia tells her as Georgie digs her water cracker into the mini feast before them.

“And why is that?”

Lucia doesn’t respond.

Just ask me. Just say the words.

“Because it doesn’t taste nice,” Lucia says, taking the biscuit out of her hand as if Georgie is her six-year-old son whose mouth she’s about to clear of whatever object he’s just put in there.

Georgie looks through the glass doors and her eyes meet Sam’s as she tries to ignore the scrutiny she’s receiving from Lucia. It’s why she loves hiding in her house. Because she doesn’t get to see that look in people’s eyes.

She stands just as Jonesy returns with the drinks.

“I’m going,” she manages to say.

Jonesy looks from one to the other. “Ah, come on, G. Sit down. You just got here.”

She shakes her head and she wants to cry because these days it’s too hard not to.

Her eyes meet Sam’s through the glass door again and she sees him sigh, the way his body slumps as he stubs out a cigarette, and next minute he’s poking his head through the doorway. All these years and he hasn’t forgotten the SOS plea in her eye.

“I’ve got to pick up the boy,” he says.

And there they are. Her options. Sitting among friends who don’t know what to say to her anymore. Or picking up a six-year-old who represents the greatest betrayal of her life.

She walks alongside Sam as they make their way up Norton Street. Years ago it’s what they used to do during the week at this time of the night. Come down for a coffee or a quick pasta and glass of wine. They loved it here on weekdays because it belonged to the locals. All the people they wanted in their lives lived within a ten-minute radius. Her brother Dominic had started the vow of not moving away from each other just because they’d be able to afford bigger houses in the outer suburbs. “Let’s stick together, no matter how poky our houses are,” he had made them all promise. “Better to be able to pick up each other’s kids and hang out together than have bigger backyards and rumpus rooms.”