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She passed a vintage clothing store, a newsagency where an old codger was perched on a stool chatting with the equally old man behind the counter as though this was how the pair of them spent their days, and a tiny medical practice constructed of ugly dark brown brick in an even uglier asymmetrical A-frame shape that might have been popular in the seventies but was now just an eyesore. A lone doctor’s name was spelled out in gilt lettering on the glass door, along with a sign informing passersby that no money or drugs were kept on the premises.

The Museum and Historical Society turned out to be just past the bakery, its paint newish, the stucco (if that’s what a nubbly painted finish on an old building was called) having been fancied up with pale green. A huge wooden door stood open, with a handpainted sign that directed visitors to the various rooms. No sign of a lift, Jodie noted. Not an ideal arrangement for a lady in her eighties with a titanium hip, if the Historical Society used the upper floor as well.

‘Auntie Carol?’ she called as she reached the inner sanctum.

‘I’m here, dear.’

‘Here’ turned out to be up a step ladder, trying to pull down a collapsing cardboard archive box with the aid of a walking stick.

‘Holy crap,’ Jodie said, darting forward. ‘Carol, are you nuts? Do you wanttwotitanium hips?’

‘It has to be this one. I’ve searched everywhere else.’

‘I’ll get the box down,’ said Jodie, putting her hands out and grabbing Carol’s frail hips to ensure the dismount from the ladder didn’t turn into Clarence’s second hamstring injury within the week. ‘What is it you’re searching for?’

Carol was not looking her usual composed, determined self. Her hair was a mess, her dress was dusty, the bead necklace she had hurried off to her mirrored dresser to find and clasp about her neck before their visit to Clarence Gardens now draped drunkenly over one shoulder rather than decorating her decolletage, and her face was, well,pinched.

‘The historical records Joan donated to the Historical Society. I don’t recall her bringing them in, but maybe it was when I was in the hospital in Lismore. I know where everything is in this place. At least, I thought I did. This box up here is not one I recognise, so itmustbe it. If one of the other volunteers has misfiled historical documents then I will beropable. We are careful here. History matters.’

More ropable than she’d been that morning at Clarence Gardens? When the sugar bowl had gone flying and a doddery old man with a dowager’s hump had had to throw himself between two irate octogenarians? Jodie doubted that was even possible.

She climbed up the step ladder, stuck her fingers into a crack at the box’s base where the cheap cardboard had begun to split, and gave it a hoick towards her. It budged, a little.

‘Is this what Joan Sloane meant this morning about downsizing? She’d donated her family stories here?’

Carol ignored the question. ‘Hurry up, pet,’ she said, clapping her hands together impatiently, and it struck Jodie that this might be a moment of leverage she would be unwise to miss.

‘Do we need to talk about what happened this morning, Carol?’

‘About my suggestion that you should set up a physio practice here and run classes out at the old fogeys’ home? It came to me like a bolt from the blue, Jodie, and I’ll have plenty more to say on the subject, just not right at this minute.’

Carol’s bolt from the blue was not what she wanted to talk about. True, helping Will out had left her with a feeling of wellbeing. Also true, senior Australians, like all Australians—including her, who’d been living like a doona-wrapped slug for the better part of a year—could benefit from appropriate exercise and stretching routines in their lives. But this morning’s drama had so not been about physiotherapy.

‘I meant the other thing, Carol,’ she said, in as non-judgey a tone as she could conjure. ‘The, um, little incident.’ And by little, she meant significant and batshit crazy.

Carol was having none of it. ‘Pet, the box.’

The sagging cardboard structure was sitting forward a little now, enough for her to reach it with two hands. She nudged it towards her another inch or two, making it look a little harder than it was.

‘Only, I don’t know if I need to be worried. Accusing Joan Sloane of stealing? Lunging for her? Damaging property?’

Carol frowned. ‘I was not lunging for Joan, Jodie, don’t be ridiculous. I was calmly reaching for the remainder of the cake on the plate to make further inspection.’

Calmly reaching. That’d explain the sugar crystal apocalypse and the need for intervention.

‘Are you okay, Auntie Carol?’

Her great aunt had some physical frailty, but she was still—and this was Jodie’s physio persona making an assessment—very mobile. She had seemed as astute as ever, too, once the pair of them had got over the initial hurdle of Jodie thinking the whole move-out-of-home plan had been agreed to and not just a case of bold meddling by Janelle.

But maybe Caroldidhave some mental frailties. Perhaps poor impulse control and cake-related violence were early signs of senility?

‘I won’t be okay until you stop pestering me with idiotic questions and bring that box down to a suitable level so its contents can be inspected.’

‘All right, keep your hair on,’ Jodie muttered. Then she was back down the ladder, box in hand, fighting back a sneeze from all the dust she’d dislodged.

‘Bring it to the map table, pet,’ said Carol.

She followed her great aunt to a large table set up in the middle of the room and put the box down. She was bemused to notice Carol was pulling on a set of thin cotton gloves from a basket in the middle of the table stuffed with tucked pairs.