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incongruously, slam the door violently behind us.

Three
    T here is this dream, as habitual as my bed-going, where I am running. I am running like no other man has ever run, crunching sand with my flying feet, speeding relentlessly along the clean hard flat beach. It is the earliest part of morning; the skies are sheer and crisp, the sun still cold and perfectly circular, the water a lazy drudge that barely swishes then settles. I continue to run, skipping barefoot across shell fragments and cuttlefish bone and mops of stinking tangled seaweed, passing hauled boats and barnacle-coated stormwater pipes, until my lungs heave and my breath catches in gulps. But I cannot stop because the run goes on forever. My legs are trapped within a cycle of pain and motion, the sand stretches like a mirage further ahead, the air above me becomes hot and blue. I keep going, now without purpose or imagination, my body maintaining the movements but my mind becoming a space, a colourless nothing. I gasp, I heave and as I spiral slowly towards consciousness, I continue to run along this pristine, tide-washed strip of sand, unable to stop or turn or deflect, unable to make sense of what I am doing, in such a confused state that the simple biomechanics of running are all that I can hope to achieve.
    The car bumps over impossible country roads. Kaz is slumped along the length of the back seat, Milo and Otis jammed alongside me in the front. I have a vision of us from the outside: small blue car buzzing like an angry insect, plumes of dust spewing from the wheels, clumps of dying grass falling from the roadside, a panorama of grey sap-smelling bush all around us, corralling us. I try to concentrate on nothing but the simple mechanics of driving — touch the clutch, ease the brake, play the steering wheel like a violinist delivering an adagio — but I cannot. Instead I hear the children breathing, see early-morning shadows that cast long and thin, a sharp wind cutting across the open window, Kaz lying quietly behind me: prone, murmuring, blotched.
    â€˜What’s wrong with Mum?’ asks Milo.
    â€˜She’s sick, idiot.’ Otis is always terse in the morning. Some days I have stopped by her bedroom door, seen her brooding, every angle of her small body abrupt and disdainful.
    â€˜It’s a chick thing,’ I told Kaz once, perhaps pompously. ‘Every female I have ever … um, known … has invariably awoken in a pissed-off state. It’s a fait accompli. We chappies should all be thankful that they then embark upon a daily ritual of emotional cleansing and self-improvement.’
    â€˜I’m choosing to ignore that.’
    â€˜It’s PMT,’ I insisted, still pompous. ‘Otis has it in spades.’
    â€˜Vince, she’s eight years old!’
    â€˜PMT. Perpetual Morning Trauma. Doesn’t matter how old you are — eight or ninety-eight. It’s a chick thing. Definitively.’
    Now, in the front of the bouncing car, my two children stare at each other then snarl, teeth bared, saliva dripping. Wolves , I think, tiny wolves with soft wet eyes that are shimmering with confusion.
    â€˜She’s got a sore hand,’ I tell them, as calmly as I can. ‘I tried to fix it but now the doctor needs to have a look.’
    Milo nods, apparently satisfied. His sister fixes her gaze on the valley ahead. It is spectacular, so much so that we don’t always remember to appreciate its beauty. Since we have lived here I have loved the steepling drop of our valley, the way its gently sloping top plunges dangerously towards a bleak unknown. Such a gradient must be a metaphor of sorts; the valley itself must hold a story within its deep green interior.
    One day, I have promised myself on numerous occasions, I will write that story. I’ll write it for Kaz.
    Otis turns her elfin face in my direction.
    â€˜Will this take long?’ she asks. ‘It’s Sunday. Hortense and I have got