Sheff drove, with Georgie beside him, and Belize sat in the back with Warwick. Despite the reason for the trip they attempted to treat it as an excursion, the road providing novelty for commentary, and also the familiar for reminiscence. Recent memory also. As they passed through Roxburgh, Sheff saw the tea rooms in which he and Georgie had sat, and the parking area where he’d bumped the car that bore a baby, but his sister said nothing of that. How much change there had been since in their relationship; Sheff found it difficult to account for his earlier exasperation.Dunedin had been the big smoke when Sheff and Georgie were children. Warwick had taken them to the movies, or the beach playground, while Belize shopped, and then they would rendezvous, and after she’d stowed her parcels in the boot, describing each as an essential purchase, they would go to one of those family restaurants, perhaps the railway carriage, that offered beer-battered fish and chips, carpet-bagger steak, pork medallions with apple sauce and kumara mash – perhaps one pasta dish as a nod to continental cuisine.And on those trips they had often passed the hospital without a thought that one day it would be the single reason for Warwick’s journey.
