Wet-haired women in white fluffy robes making their way through reception stopped to stare at the interesting sight of three tall women, sneezing uncontrollably. Tears of mirth streamed down Gemma’s face, Lyn distributed tissues, and Cat walked up to reception and between sneezes said, “We need our money back.”

The weekend was now an adventure, a story to tell. They were ecstatic with themselves when they found a house, perched on the side of a mountain, with four-poster beds in each room, and a truly amazing bathroom! It had a huge spa bath right next to a giant window that revealed the valley tumbling dramatically away beneath them, so that when you sat in the bath, it was like flying on a magic carpet. “That’s what one of our visitors wrote in the guest book,” explained their hostess proudly.

Gemma insisted they share a spa bath immediately, before it got dark and the view disappeared.

“It’s like we’re all back together in the womb!” she said when they were sitting in the bath, their backs up against the sides, legs crisscrossing in the middle, wineglasses in hand. “It was just like this, except without the sauvignon blanc. Or the bubbles.”

“You do not remember being in the womb, Gemma,” said Lyn.

“I do!” said Gemma airily. “We used to float around all day, having fun.”

“Mum thinks we were fighting,” commented Cat. “She read somewhere about twins actually thumping each other in the womb.”

“Oh no,” said Gemma. “I don’t remember any fighting.”

Lyn widened her eyes fractionally at Cat and lifted her hair away from her neck. Gemma held her nose and slowly slid down until her head disappeared beneath the noisily bubbling water.

Cat closed her eyes and felt the childlike, familiar comfort of her sisters’ legs pressed casually against her own.

It might actually be rather nice to return to that shadowy time of preexistence, she thought, when there was nothing particularly pressing to do except the occasional somersault, no thoughts, just interesting sensations of light and sound, and no loneliness, because those other two versions of you, who had been there forever, were right there beside you, not going anywhere.

CHAPTER 18

All her life Cat had never had a problem falling asleep. Now she battled ferocious attacks of insomnia. Each night she lay in bed with her eyes firmly shut, her body carefully positioned for sleep, and felt like a fraud. Her body wasn’t deceived. The mechanics of falling asleep had become mysterious to her.

Eventually she would give up, turn on the lamp, and read, for hours, till three, four o’clock in the morning. She never closed the book. One second she’d be reading a sentence, the next the alarm was beeping insistently and she was groggily opening her eyes, the book still open in her hand, the light from the lamp insipid in the morning sunshine.

One night, in the middle of the night, she was sitting propped up in bed, turning the pages of her novel without taking in a word.

She was thinking about how she and Dan had shared over a decade of events.

They were together, cooking steak at the pub barbecue, when they overheard somebody asking if it was true that Princess Diana had died.

They were part of the crazed crowd in the stadium on Bondi Beach, chanting “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi!” when the women’s beach volleyball team won Olympic gold.

There was the Tuesday night when Dan was watching the late news and she was cleaning her teeth. She heard him swear and then call out, “You’d better come look at this.” She walked into the living room with her toothbrush still in her mouth and for the first time saw that plane make its unrelenting, cold-blooded flight across the skyline. They sat up until dawn, watching the twin towers crumble, over and over.

And then there were the personal events. The auction when they bought their unit. “Sold!” the auctioneer cried out, and they leaped to their feet, punching their fists in the air.

The scuba dive when they saw their first Weedy Sea Dragon, a fragile, mythical creature. Dan drew three big exclamation marks on his slate.

The trip to Europe. The wedding. The honeymoon. The trek in Nepal.

A million minuscule events. The pizza that never came. The Pictionary game where they slaughtered Lyn and Michael. The first time they used their breadmaker and the bread was so hard they kicked it around the kitchen like a football. The weird, druggy guy from next door who inexplicably said, “Bitchin’ Barney!” whenever he met Dan at the garbage bins. How could she not be with someone who shared such a major chunk of her life?

Just six months ago they’d had a weekend away in a B&B in the Southern Highlands. It rained and they made up a stupid game called Strip Scrabble. She laughed so much her stomach hurt. Was he experiencing his “niggling doubts” that weekend?

Each time Cat looked the other way did his smile vanish and his face go blank, like a movie character letting the audience know what he was really thinking?

She slammed the book shut and looked over at his empty side of the bed. Was he sleeping peacefully next to Angela right now? Had they made love? Had they worked out positions for sleeping together? Did he complain about her hair tickling his nose? All that long, lovely black hair.

Oh God, this pain was unbearable, excruciating. Nobody could expect her to bear this.

She got out of bed and went around the flat swiching on lights. She stood under the shower and held her face up to the water. She turned on the television and flicked dully back and forth between channels. She stood in front of her open fridge, staring blankly at its contents. A basket of ironing killed off forty-five minutes.