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She heard her sister Lisa yell, ‘You want a beer, Luke?'

Luke nodded and stepped over the low wooden fence into Tim and Lisa's front yard, carrying a dirty engine part.

Grace went out. ‘Hi everyone.' Grace smiled, like she'd just arrived at a picnic. ‘Sure is hot.'

‘Just average,' said Tim. Grace guessed he was still generally simmering at the present ‘situation'.

‘Not like Europe, I bet,' said Luke.

‘You heard about that? Secret's out now, it looks like.'

He nodded, but then looked away embarrassed.

Grace said, ‘It was very cold in Switzerland. It snowed.' She shook herself in a demonstration of shivering but then felt stupid. ‘I mean, of course. Derr. Switzerland and snow. Like saying it's hot in the desert.'

Lisa came down the steps with two cans of beer in stubby holders. When she saw Grace looking she gave her a tired smile.

‘I was in Afghanistan,' said Luke. ‘You want cold, you try those mountains. In winter. I mean you wouldn't want to try them.'

‘Afghanistan!' said Grace. ‘Are you a soldier?'

‘Was,' said Luke.

Lisa gave the beers to the men.

Tim said, ‘The captain here has a couple of medals.'

‘I was just a corporal.'

‘Nothing to be ashamed of.' JJ came from the caravan like a car salesman entering the yard. ‘Army's the backbone of this country. There'd be no athletes if there was no army. And we know it. Good on ya, I say.'

JJ looked up at them. Tim was six and a half feet tall, and Luke nearly the same, only all muscle. Even Lisa was a head taller than JJ. Silence, like a hole in the ground.

Grace filled it. ‘We stayed all over Europe. Spain. Rome. I went to the museums. I saw paintings of Impressionists in Paris and they were real, not prints. There were statues in Rome. In Madrid, there's statues everywhere outside and they're really old, with fountains. I saw a concert in one of the hotels that they had in the grounds.'

‘Fancy,' said Lisa. ‘Living in hotels for two years.'

‘Biggest shitload of free food and grog you ever saw,' said JJ.

‘Looks like you got most of it,' said Tim.

Grace said, ‘And in France I started learning French. “Excusez-moi l'étranger, est cela la voie au musée?”'

Luke laughed, delighted. Even Lisa and Tim were smiling at Grace's performance.

‘Yeah,' interrupted JJ, ‘I got a lot of French over the last couple of years.'

Grace stood, trying to keep her smile going in the new silence.

Finally, Tim said, ‘If you're hiding out from the police and everybody, is it smart to be hanging around out the front of the house?'

JJ suddenly looked up and down the street. There was a narrow strip of bush and a freeway over the road. ‘Yeah, good point.' JJ went back around the side of the house.

Tim said, ‘The athlete has left the building.'

Lisa said, ‘Well, I better get dinner started.'

‘I'll help,' said Grace.

Grace peeled potatoes while her sister sprinkled spice on the meat.

Grace said, ‘Sorry, Lisa.'

‘What are you gunna do?'

‘Well, I've seen the world.'

Lisa looked over and saw that her sister was being ironic. ‘On the run!'

‘It wasn't like that. Not like how the papers said. We mostly just stayed in Ramada Inns. Like a holiday. Then it was a bit like prison anyway, I guess.'

‘You don't love him. I can see that.'

‘I try to.'

‘He's a pig.'

‘He's my husband.'

Grace sat by the pool of the Four Seasons in London, reading
Pride and Prejudice
with furrowed brow. It was a hard book. She looked up and saw herself in one of the huge glass walls that surrounded the pool. She was in a white hotel robe over her bathing suit on account of the cold, but not just that. Grace had been worried about her looks, about how all the eating and sitting and doing nothing was making her face round and her body plump. It had taken a while, but she felt like she'd turned from Calista Flockhart into Britney Spears. The waiters still gave her the look, but JJ had gotten a little unseeing around her.

She looked up at the underneath of the pool roof where thousands of droplets of water quivered. The steam from the pool condensed and every now and then a drop would get big enough or cold enough and would fall. If one got you, it was quite a shock. The swimming pool was in its own room attached to the hotel. All the walls were clear glass between columns. It reminded Grace of the picture of the coffin where Snow White lay after biting the apple. She sniffed at the warm, oversweet smell of chlorine.

JJ came from the hotel, his burgeoning body spilling out of tiny speedos and his robe flowing out behind, like an angry midget wrestler on his way to the ring. ‘He's in jail,' he yelled.

‘Foster?'

JJ sat on his pool chair, facing her and nodding. ‘Wooroloo.'

‘Not for the ring-in?'

‘Naw. Something else. Some business shit. He's fucking up lots of things.'

Grace watched JJ clench and unclench his hands. ‘So are the bills still getting paid?'

‘I don't think so. I think maybe we dropped down the list of priorities.'

Grace looked back to the hotel and then to JJ. ‘So what did you tell them?'

‘Nothin'. I haven't thought of anything yet.'

‘Let's go home.'

‘What?'

‘Let's go back to Australia.'

‘We're on holidays.'

‘JJ, I'm bored.'

‘Well don't read all the time. Do something. I'm showing you the world here.'

Grace got up and went around behind JJ and started to knead his shoulders. ‘I'm sorry, baby. It's all good. It's been amazing. Just amazing.'

He grunted, but was leaning back into the massage. ‘It's not easy being on the run, you know.'

‘I know, JJ. And all the pressure is on you.'

‘Puttin' my career on hold.'

‘You'll get that back.' She looked doubtfully down past his shoulders at the watermelon that had replaced JJ's once flat stomach. ‘What are we going to do about the hotel concierge?'

‘Yeah, I s'pose I can try to get through to someone who does some shady stuff for Foster. Bobby, maybe.' He looked up suddenly with a smile. ‘Or we can do a runner?'

Simon waited in the taxi outside a block of flats in Midvale. He'd been left with the bigger one. Simon watched him in the rear-view mirror as he teased at a piece of the plastic on his door, managing to get a little bit loose by the window trim.

Simon said, ‘Be another warm night, I reckon.'

Simon watched him look out at the world with little interest and no comment. Simon turned towards a movement over at the flats. The
smaller one was coming back. Then Simon saw who he was and turned away, perhaps too quickly, pretending to fiddle with the GPS.

Ellis got in the taxi. He said, ‘Wasn't there.'

‘Oh.'

‘That guy in the pub. In Guildford.'

‘In Guildford? That pub burnt down.'

‘Not the pub. The guy. The one from the caravan park.'

‘Gary. Near the river.'

‘Gary, yeah. He said he had ... one. Was hiding it for a bikie. Yeah, Gary. Hey, taxi guy, drive us to Guildford Caravan Park.'

‘You got it.' Simon pulled out, trying not to give Ellis a look at his face.

After a while Ellis said it. ‘Say, do I know you?'

Simon said, ‘I don't think so, mate.'

‘Hm, let's see this little plastic picture here. It says Simon Carter. Simon? Hmm. Now I think I know that name. Simon.' Ellis was playing with him now. ‘You ever played football?'

‘No sir.'

‘Sir! I'm pretty sure it wasn't prison. You know this guy from prison, Ned?'

Ned shook his head.

‘Hey, I knew a Simon at school. Was that you Simon?'

‘Yes, it was. Hello, Ellis.'

That stopped Ellis a moment. But then he said, ‘Yeah. It's me.' Like a judge's sentence.

Simon didn't say anything, waiting for Ellis.

Ellis started giggling. ‘A taxi. He's driving a taxi. Ned, you don't recognise Simon?'

‘No.'

‘I thought everyone knew Simon. He was famous. At school, he was always up there on the stage at assembly, where we could all, um just admire him, I s'pose. I think those teachers used to put him up there for us to try to be like him. Was that the plan, Simon?'

‘I don't know, Ellis. I was a kid too. Long time ago.' Simon drove. His left hand sat on his knee, but not too far from the temporary two-way radio.

‘You still got those two crazy eyes, Simon?'

‘Yep, still there.'

‘Guy's got two different colour eyes, Ned. When he stops, get a look.'

Simon could still only see Ned in the rear-view mirror. Ned looked at Simon a moment but quickly back to Ellis, uneasy. It seemed that he didn't know which way this was going to go either.

‘Like yesterday to me – all that school shit. Sports captain. Cricket and basketball. All the kiddie brown-nose committees. Oh, and top of the class. Not my class. I was in criminal class. He always had clean shirts. Only the honeyest, cutest, cleanest girls – lining up for old Simon to pop their cherry. Like a rock star. Ned, you better bow down to this guy. This is Simon Carter ... and he's driving a fucking taxi.'

Ned said, ‘I didn't go to your school, Ellis.'

‘It's a very clean taxi, Simon.'

‘I think it's brand new,' offered Ned.

‘Is that what you do, Simon? Are you like a test pilot for the new taxis?'

‘Ha, no Ellis, I just drive it. Here we are.'

Simon pulled off the road into the Guildford Caravan Park. It was not a family holiday destination, but a neglected long-term accommodation spot, half a star from being condemned.

Simon stopped by the front gate and turned with a smile. ‘Here you go Ellis. Ned. Good to meet you. Tell you what, for old times' sake, let's say this ride is on the house.'

Ellis went cold. ‘Let's say not. I don't need your charity.'

‘Not charity. Just a present.'

‘No!' shouted Ellis.

Ned reached for a plastic bag in his lap.

Simon wished he'd turned the other way, so he could reach his doorhandle.

‘See his eyes,' said Ellis, suddenly not angry.

‘Weird,' said Ned, looking from Simon's blue eye to his grey eye and back.

Ellis said, ‘We got lots of money. I'm a very successful guy now. And we haven't finished our ride yet. This is just a stop. Places to go. And I need the ride.'

Simon looked at Ellis and then nodded. ‘You got it.' He turned back to the wheel, casually waiting.

‘Sure is a new taxi you got here, Simon.'

‘Yeah. The owner just got it.'

‘Told you,' said Ned.

‘You got the old kind of radio there.'

‘Yes. Just until they put the dispatch computer in.'

Ellis looked around the inside of the taxi, too carefully, then got out of the car. He leaned back in as Ned started to open his door. ‘You stay here.'

‘But I want to...'

‘I said stay.'

Simon had a good position on the side mirror now. He saw Ellis glare and indicate that Ned was to watch Simon. He looked to the rear-view mirror to catch Ned touching the top of a knife handle he had in the plastic bag. Simon looked back to the other mirror to find Ellis, but he was by the driver's window. Simon wound it down.

‘Sure is some coincidence, eh?' said Ellis.

‘It's a small town.'

Ellis suddenly adopted a gun fighter stance and put on a bad American accent. ‘This town ain't big enough for the both of us.' He mimed drawing a gun, his finger pointed at Simon. ‘Pow,' he said without much volume. ‘See you guys in a minute.'

Simon watched Ellis walk towards a wheelless motor home that had a motorbike out the front. Ellis stretched his arms out and wriggled his fingers, loosening for the quick draw.

Simon dropped his hand back to his knee and let it sit there a moment before it started to crawl towards the radio.

‘No,' said Ned from the back.

‘I got to let them know I'm stopped, but still on the job.'

Ned looked to the meter. It was already up to fifty-six dollars.

Ned said, ‘No radio till Ellis gets back.'

Simon turned back to him but then shrugged, easy.

Ned looked at him for a while, flicking from eye to eye, before settling on his nose and saying, ‘If you're so smart, how come you're driving a taxi?'

Simon nodded at the good question. ‘I kind of drifted into it. I like it fine. Well, I don't not like it. As my ex-wife explained, I have a problem with ambition. Anyway, I don't like it less than other things I've done, which I disliked more. So here I am.'

Ned was looking at the motor home where Ellis was knocking on the door.

Simon said, ‘You gotta pay the rent.'

‘Why?'

Gary opened the door to peer at a ratty little guy in an AC/DC t-shirt.

‘Gary.'

Gary finished tying his sarong.

‘How you doin', mate?'

‘What do you want?'

‘Business. Can't do it standing out here.' He held up his mobile phone like it meant something and began a quarter smile working, but gave it up and started inside.

Gary tried to step across, but too late. He looked at the taxi waiting before closing the door.

AC/DC fiddled with his phone as he sat in the middle of the couch, making himself at home. He nodded at the bong in the middle of Gary's huge jarrah coffee table. ‘Made out of a science tube, right?'