The lights changed and Dan accelerated.

“You know, I might forgive you, one day,” she said. “I might.”

“The air conditioning isn’t working,” said Michael as he ushered them into the house. “My wife is not happy. Merry Christmas.”

He had a screwdriver in his hand, which he handed to Dan. “It’s time to initiate you into one of the great joys of fatherhood, mate.”

Dan stared at the screwdriver.

“You get a picture on a box, a thousand little screws, and instructions entirely lacking in logic. Oh, it’s fun. Today, we’re working on a three-story cubby house. Santa Claus must have been out of her mind. Come on. You’re not escaping.”

“A drink?” asked Dan a touch desperately, as Michael led him off by the elbow.

Cat mouthed the word “probation” at him.

She found Lyn in the kitchen, wearing a sleeveless sundress that made her shoulders look too thin. The gleaming granite bench tops were covered with orderly rows of chopped ingredients. She was standing at the kitchen sink washing lettuce leaves.

“You’re the most organized cook on the planet,” said Cat. “What is that noise?” She bent down to see Maddie sitting under the table, frowning heavily, while she banged away discordantly on a tiny xylophone.

“My Cat!” cried Maddie and banged even harder to celebrate. “Look! Maddie noisy! Shhhh!”

“Ooh, can I see?” asked Cat hopefully, but Maddie was way too smart for that.

“No!”

“It’s no use.” Lyn wiped the back of a wet hand against her forehead. “It’s her favorite present. You know who it’s from—Georgina. The bitch. She must have combed the shops looking for the loudest toy she could find. I’ve had the worst morning. First the air conditioning. We can’t get anybody out to fix it and they’re forecasting thirty-four degrees. Nana will be complaining all day. Michael has spent two hours on that stupid cubby house. Mum’s setting the table on the veranda, and she’s so tightly wound up you can see the static crackling. You’d better keep away from her. Kara is upstairs, refusing to come out of her room. Gemma just called, all dreamy and idiotic, asking how to make a potato salad. Dad and Nana are late. Oh no, you disgusting, vile creature!”

Lyn did a strange little flapping dance on the spot and pointed at a cockroach in the middle of the kitchen floor. It seemed to have caught Lyn’s panic and kept changing its mind about which way it should go.

“The spray! It’s right there next to you. Stop laughing and kill it!”

Cat grabbed the spray. “Die, you little motherfucker,” she said and blasted it.

“Yucky,” observed Maddie, who had come out from under the kitchen table and now stood with her hands on her hips like a disgusted little housewife.

“That’s exactly what I say when I kill cockroaches,” said Lyn, as she scooped up the cockroach with a paper towel.

“Yucky?”

“Die, you little motherfucker. In exactly that tone of voice. I’m pretending to be Arnie Schwarzenegger.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

They grinned, pleased with themselves.

“We’ll have to ask Gemma if she does it too,” said Lyn.

“She probably doesn’t know you’re meant to kill them. What shall I do to help now I’ve got rid of your vermin?”

“Can you extricate Kara from her hovel? She listens to you. Thinks you’re cool.”

“O.K.”

“You’re glowing by the way,” said Lyn as she returned to her lettuce leaves and Maddie returned to her xylophone. “Pregnancy must suit you.”

Cat smiled widely. “Cool and glowing. Glowing coolly.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go away. Maddie, I’m begging you to be quiet!”

Cat knocked once on Kara’s door and walked into her dark bedroom, which smelled of perfume and illicit cigarette smoke. The floor was layered in discarded clothing.

It was Cat’s own teenage bedroom. The one she got for four months of the year before she had to move out and let a sister take a turn at a room of her own. Kara was lying facedown on her bed, and Cat could hear the tinny beat of music from her headphones. She sat down on the end of the bed and grabbed her ankle.

Kara’s shoulder blades twitched angrily and she turned over, revealing blotchy mascara tearstains.

“Oh,” she said, pulling her headphones around her neck. “It’s you.”

“Yep,” said Cat. “Happy Christmas. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“So why the suicidal look? Did you get really bad presents?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“No. Probably not. Try me anyway so you can prove yourself right.”

Kara sighed dramatically.

“O.K., so this morning right, Mum gives me these shorts for Christmas and she goes, Try them on, try them on! I didn’t want to try them on in front of everybody but she wouldn’t shut up, so I did and I had to do this embarrassing, like fashion parade, with my gran saying Ohhhh, isn’t she sweet? and then do you know what Mum said, really loudly, in front of everybody?”

Kara’s voice quivered and Cat thought, You bitch, Georgina.

“What?”

“She said they didn’t really suit me!”

Kara’s face crumbled. “Can you believe she said that?”

“Mmmm. Well, I guess—”

“She means I’ve got fat, ugly, disgusting legs!”

“No, I don’t think she did mean that actually.”

“You don’t understand. You’ve got great legs!” Kara pinched viciously at the flesh on her own thighs. “And don’t you dare say there’s nothing wrong with my legs because if you do, you’re just a liar. I know there is, because at the swimming carnival, Matt Hayes pointed at me and said he’d seen better legs on a table, and all his stupid friends laughed through their noses, like they agreed!”

It was no wonder that teenagers ended up going on shooting rampages, thought Cat. She herself could cheerfully fire off a few rounds at Matt and his pathetic, pimply little mates.

“And don’t talk to me about how the media tries to make women feel bad about their bodies and it’s a feminist issue and blah, blah, blah. I know all that stuff! It doesn’t make any difference.”