The Rise and Fall of the Wonder Girls. Sarah May

was too depressed to be trusted with this task—and enjoyed sunbathing on her Plantation recliner. She didn’t enjoy anything that required her to kneel or wear old clothing, and anyway—lost interest once the summer was over.

      She’d gone to a nursery just outside Burwood that was often on TV and spent vast amounts of money on plants guaranteed to give architectural effect, but still couldn’t make the garden come together. It overwhelmed her—and it knew it.

      She could feel it now, in its winter nudity, taunting her—and wished the fog hadn’t lifted.

      Shifting her eyes away from the garden, she continued pulling weights until the phone started to ring.

      She answered it, panting.

      ‘Mum? Are you okay?’

      ‘Tom—’

      ‘You sound weird.’

      ‘I’m down in the gym.’

      ‘Is now a good time to talk?’

      ‘About what?’

      ‘The weekend.’

      Tom sounded tense; stressed. His usual lightness—that herself and others found so endearing—wasn’t there.

      ‘Listen, mum—I don’t think I’m going to make it.’

      ‘Tom—’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘My poker party.’

      ‘I know—’

      ‘I’ve told everyone you’re coming.’ She indulged rapidly in the image of Tom in his Dinner Jacket moving through her guests. ‘What am I going to say to people? My God—’

      In her distress, she’d inadvertently turned back to face the garden and was now staring at the randomly planted oleanders, olives, Dicksonia antarctica and eucalyptus trees looking like a band of horticultural misfits that had broken rank for the final time, never to re-group again under her command. She knew she’d seen Day of the Triffids