For a moment she feared he would, like a new puppy, burst through the fly wire. But he contained himself and in a second, with the flimsy screen door still intact, he was crushing her to him and she was laughing out loud. She was pleased to see him, more pleased than she would have imagined, but just the same she had to shush his croaking voice, his joyful shouts, because there was a meeting in progress inside and she – the minute book was in her hand – was secretary. She put her finger to her lips and said he could come in and listen, that they would not (she pulled a face) be too much longer.

In the little room, sitting on the floor, on broken chairs, on the bed, were a number of men and women who would be, or already were, famous as artists and writers. They were meeting to organize an exhibition to raise money to send Australians to fight against General Franco and when Charles entered they smiled at him in a good-natured way and went back to their business. Charles blushed bright red and sat in a corner against the wall.

There was a fierce argument proceeding about whether there could be any such thing as proletarian art. Charles was surprised to see that Leah, whom he remembered most for her strong opinions, took no part in this. Neither did she write down anything that was said. She sat beside and a little behind Izzie's wheelchair and, twice, smiled at Charles. No one seemed to take any notice of Izzie's mutilation and Charles was shocked that he did not take the trouble to throw a rug across those trousered stumps.

Charles felt self-conscious and ill at ease. He understood almost nothing about the room or the situation. He could not see why a man should wear a fur hat or a woman have green stockings. He did not understand the abstract print on the wall or even the language that they spoke. He listened to Izzie Kaletsky pouring scorn on the possibility of proletarian art but he could not understand what he was talking about.

And yet he had trapped rabbits and sold birds. He had been fencing in Western New South Wales. He could trap rosellas with no other bait than a cup of water. The total of his savings was a hundred and five pounds six shillings and twopence. This was more, he thought, than most of these people were worth. They had no right to make him feel so stupid. He sought a way to move the ground to something that would be more favourable to him. He was not so ambitious as to attempt to make the Picasso print disappear or the problems of proletarian art vanish, and yet this is precisely what he succeeded in doing – he opened his swag and took out his snake, a little green and yellow tree snake, startlingly beautiful and very active, which he had bought that afternoon in Campbell Street.

He sat in the corner, casting secret smiles at Leah and soon the meeting was finished because everyone was looking at the snake and no one could concentrate on what anyone else was saying.

It was not long before he was telling them about his work with the fencing contractor and his experience with snakes out west. He was, after all, a Badgery.

When everyone had gone, Leah excused herself (it was time for her to make Lenny's cocoa) and Charles and Izzie were left alone together.

Izzie was irritable, not with Charles, but with his comrades who were so easily distracted from their work, like children in a schoolroom on a summer afternoon. He rocked himself back and forth in his chair, lit a cigarette, and tried to stop the tide of desolation that always overcame him when the meetings were over and he was left alone with his wife. He fidgeted, balanced his ashtray, bit his lip and tried to feel sympathy for his unwanted guest.

"So," he said, "what are your plans for Sydney?"

Charles missed half of the sentence but he understood more from Izzie's face than he would, anyway, have gathered from the words.

"I'm a bit hard of hearing," he said belligerently.

Izzie did not repeat himself. Now he was reinstated as a teacher his days were long ones. He nodded, wearily. Charles interpreted the weariness as hostility.

"I suppose you think I'm a bit of a mug," he said.

Izzie shook his head. "No," he said, and smiled.

They sat and looked at each other. Charles was soon in a panic. If he was not an idiot he should be able to say something. He did not know what to say or how to say it.

"I remember you," he begged. "We met before. My cockie bit your finger."

Izzie would have preferred to be kind to the fidgeting boy, but Charles chose to remind him of the day he would prefer to forget.

There was another silence.

"I came down to find my mum."

Izzie said something but Charles missed it. He started fiddling with his hearing aid. He banged the metal box on his knee.

"Do you remember me?" he demanded. "I remember you. I was only a young fellow."

"I'm sorry. I'm tired."

"What were you talking about when I came in?"

Izzie explained but Charles gave up understanding almost as soon as he started and when he spoke again it was on another subject entirely.

"I owe Leah a lot."

"Everybody seems to." Izzie just wanted to go to bed and sleep. He did not wish to hear talk about his saintly wife, but he did wish her to come and rescue him. He looked expectantly towards the door.

"I'm going to take her to the theatre."

In fact Charles had been going to take them both to the theatre. He did not even know that he'd changed his mind until the words came out of his mouth and he had excluded Izzie from it. "And to a rest-er-raunt."

"Good for you," said Izzie Kaletsky, now thoroughly impatient with his bumptious guest. He leaned over and started to pick up the typed pages that were spread on the surface of the bed.

"Yes. I'm going to take her to the Chinese acrobats."

"That's nice." Izzie placed the pages in a dun-coloured folder.

"It will be nice. There are twelve boy acrobats, from China. I've got the money."

"You're very fortunate."

"I worked for it, every zac and deener. I was going to take her to a pub, but I met a bloke on the train who said a resteraunt would be better."

"Then you should take her to Prunier's."

"What's that?"

"Prunier's. Here, I'll write it down for you," said Izzie Kaletsky with a malice that was no longer new to him. "It's the very best restaurant in Sydney."

"That's what I want."

Charles took the piece of paper Izzie gave him and painstakingly copied the name and address into a small marbled notebook.

But he was to cross out the address the following morning when Leah, declining his invitation, laughed. It was then he knew Izzie had made a fool of him and he never tried to like him again.

6

It was Leah Goldstein who wrote to me to say my missing son was found at last. She described for me his half-grown-up face, his smell, his clothes, his croaking voice, his snake, his bankbooks. On the first morning she cooked him a big breakfast with grilled sausages, steak, kidney, onions, eggs, chops, buttered toast, cups of tea. She served this monstrous meal on a plate with a blue rim. This is what she told me, and I am not saying it wasn't kind of her, or even typical of her, only that you can't rely on it being true – by 1938 my puritanical friend was as addicted to telling lies as another woman, equally unhappy with her life, might be to a sherry bottle.

Yes, yes, I am asking you to believe that Honest Leah had become Lying Leah. I am not saying that it happened overnight. These things don't happen like that. Lies were not on her mind at all. She had sought to do no more than deliver some happiness to me, each day, for every day I lived in gaol. She wrote me letters.

She did not tell me that this enraged her husband. Neither did she describe the weather when it was unpleasant. If she was ill she would not trouble me with it; she would write as if she were well. This, of course, is not quite lying.