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together. The ones of her father looked recent. She looked at them closely. She hadn’t seen him in the flesh since she was eight years old.
    Her idea of him had constantly changed since that time, influenced by whatever she was reading or watching. As a child, she’d thought of him as an Uncle Quentin–type distracted scientist character from the
Famous Five
books. The missing Mr. March from
Little Women.
The absent father in
The Railway Children.
    The real Laurence Devereaux had an oval-shaped face, gray curly hair and enquiring eyes. Sebastian was very like him. Sylvie had often been told how like Sebastian she was.
    Which meant she was like her father too.

Chapter Four
    By the end of the first week of her trial run, Sylvie had learned one new thing about herself.
    She was no good at relaxing.
    She’d walked into the city center every day, via the Botanic Gardens, taking a different path each time to get to know her way around. She’d contacted five real estate agents to get an idea about current rents in nearby suburbs. She’d rung three temp agencies, faxed her CV and Sydney references to them all, done face-to-face interviews with two, phone interviews with the other one and was now on call for work with all three.
    She’d asked herself a hundred questions and had a head full of possible answers. If I stayed here permanently, which suburb would I live in? What work would I do? Would I make any friends? Where would I eat out? Where would I stop for coffee after work? Where would I have long Sunday breakfasts? Where would I shop? Go dancing? See films? Underneath all of them was one big question. Would I be the same person I am in Sydney?
    Sebastian rang to see how she was getting on. He was on location in an old country mansion halfway between Melbourne and Adelaide, working on a period drama. He was appalled when she told him what she’d been doing.
    “What happened to the holiday? You’re there to take some time out too, remember, not launch yourself on a full-scale reconnaissance mission.”
    “It’s a trial run. I’m trial running.”
    “You’re like an athlete on steroids. Slow down, would you? You have to have a gap in your life if you want something new to come in. Have you read a book? Watched a film? Listened to some calming music?”
    “I haven’t had time.”
    He laughed. “Then make time. And will you promise me something?”
    “Depends.”
    “Be home tomorrow between noon and one.”
    “Why?”
    “Just promise.”
    She did as she was told. She got up early the next day, went to the shops down the road and bought all the ingredients for a leisurely holiday-type breakfast: fresh orange juice, warm croissants, ripe peaches and two newspapers. She read them from front to back. She took out the folder Sebastian had left for her, labeled
Possible Leisure Activities and Cultural Pursuits for Sylvie in My Absence
. There were theater programs, cinema schedules, opening times for the nearby swimming pool, library, gym and video store, all with Post-it notes and comments attached. She made a list of things she’d like to see.
    Tucked underneath them all, she found an old-fashioned luggage label. “Pin this to your clothes every time you go out,” he’d written on another Post-it note. The label read:
My name is Sylvie. I live on Marne Street, South Yarra. I am lost. Please look after me
.
She grinned as she attached it to her red denim jacket, feeling like Paddington Bear.
    By eleven o’clock she was fidgety. At work by this time, she would have made twenty phone calls, sent thirty emails, filled a dozen orders and probably booked her mother or sisters into either a restaurant, a beautician or their latest fad, Club Dance, a mid-morning exercise class in a nearby nightclub. Sylvie had read the brochure as she booked her sisters in for a six-week course. For a small fortune, they were being promised new levels of fat-burning and mood-lifting. When Sylvie wondered out loud if this was a clever