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from the water until her lips were purple and her teeth chattering...only to turn, with no sense of incongruity, to filling her stomach with an ice cold treat.
    'Ok, then, another swim,' he conceded. 'But I won't come in the water this time, possum.'
    There was a large shadecloth-covered children's pool, where Ellie was well within her depth and quite safe as she splashed about and practised her sketchy swimming strokes.
    'OK, Daddy. Do you have to ring the hospital?' She always associated his mobile phone with the demands of his work.
    'No, I have to ring Jenny. I'm going to ask her to stay the night in case I have to go in to the hospital later.'
    'Is someone hurt?'
    'Some people might be, some time. They're fighting a big bushfire. We'll hope they're all OK, though.'
    'Yes,' she agreed easily, and they walked along the cement path back to the children's pool with no further comment from her on the subject. She was splashing her way into the middle of the pool seconds later.
    Malcolm didn't like her to dwell on the harsher realities of his work. In fact, he actively protected her from such things, and he often envied her her youthful ability to live in the moment. He was grateful, too, for the fact that she forced him to do so as well. In the months following Bronwyn's death, caring for Ellie was possibly the only thing that had kept him sane.
    He was definitely thinking about it all much more this weekend, after seeing Lucy...
    She, too, had been one of the vital factors in keeping him going six years ago, until he'd so abruptly sent her away. It hadn't even occurred to him until afterwards? how cruel that might have been. To do it so suddenly when she'd already been so attached to Ellie. It had been typical of her maturity, her generosity and her sense of honour, he considered, that she'd agreed so quickly to what he'd asked and had made her departure so smooth and unfussed.
    But, then, honourable as she'd been, perhaps she'd been as tormented by guilt and regret as he d been, and had been just as anxious to be free of his presence.
    They'd slept together.
    Even now, he couldn't fully understand how it had happened. 'Slept together' wasn't right, anyway. What an inaccurate euphemism that could be! There had been no sleep involved during that single, impossible episode. No real togetherness, either. They'd actually been far closer, emotionally and in spirit, at other times during Lucy's period of employment as Bronwyn's nurse. Still, it had been the physical thing that had felt like the betrayal.
    It had happened just four days after Bronwyn's death, at the point where the engine of nervous energy that had kept him going for months through Bronwyn's pregnancy and illness, and through the funeral and var ious other practical arrangements, had finally run down, leaving him totally empty, totally vulnerable.
    Stupidly, and not in character at all, he'd turned to alcohol. Not enough to knock himself out, unfortunately, just enough to completely impair his judgement and his control.
    He remembered talking to Lucy in the kitchen—imprisoning her there, really, with his slurred, repetitive, anguished words—then saying goodnight to her. It must have been well after midnight. She'd gone along to her room to get ready for bed. He had... He couldn't remember what he'd done at this point...
    Then they'd both met outside baby Gabrielle's room later, intending to check on her, and somehow...perhaps it was better that he couldn't remember...he'd taken her into his arms and ravished her with clumsy, desperate kisses...kisses which had soon led on, beyond control, to a feverish interlude of love-making—another inaccurate euphemism—on the hall carpet.
    The release of tension, the brief immersion in another universe of fabulous sensation, had been incredible for both of them. Immediately afterwards, however, she'd gasped out something he hadn't understood and had fled into her room. He hadn't seen her again that night.
    He'd gritted