I took the pressure off the trigger, the water stopped, and there was dead silence.

We watched him walk over to us, stony faced.

“Did he know you were here?” I asked Murphy. I figured Jess would have arrived at his place with Isabelle about twenty minutes ago. Still some trust issues there. Maybe they were expecting Laura back sooner.

“Must have guessed.” We were both standing there like a couple of kids who had done something wrong and were waiting for the sky to fall in on us.

Up close, Jess’s dad still didn’t look pleased.

“Isaac.” He looked at both of us in turn. “Laura.”

“Dad, why are you here?” asked Laura.

I hoped he was going to say he wanted to borrow a hammer or something. He didn’t. He compressed his lips for a moment.

“I could ask you the same question.” He waited for an answer, but we stayed quiet. Then he folded his arms. “What are you two going to do next?” he asked. “Go and have a shower together?” One thing about these Murphy’s, you can’t accuse them of beating around the bush. But I never expected to ever hear him say that. I considered just going inside and locking the door. I’m not his kid, and I’m not in his class either.

I decided to stick around, but this situation wasn’t good.

Then he turned to Laura. “You, go and wait in the car, I’ll talk to you on the way home. Right now,” he turned back to me. “I’m going to have talk to your sister’s husband.” He put a lot of emphasis on the last two words.

“Dad,” said Laura. She was biting her lip, looking from me to her father, back to me. I was pretty sure she wasn’t too keen on the ride back home any more than I was looking forward to the next ten minutes.

“Go.” His voice was steely and he pointed at the car.

Laura walked slowly to the car. Jess’s father turned back to me. By then I’d got rid of the hose and the bucket. It was like getting rid of the evidence.

“Now Isaac,” he said, still not happy. “Do you want to explain what’s going on here? And don’t give me any shit about washing the house.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“That’s not what I saw,” he said.

“If nothing’s happened yet, its headed that way.” And I think maybe he wasn’t all wrong. Laura’s easy to be around and fuck she’s got a great body. And where did my mind drift when she made that crack about water skiing?

Then he spent a good quarter of an hour pointing out what was wrong with me, and the things I’d done that piss him off. A fair few of them went right back to when I first started going out with Jess. Plenty about my conduct at the bach. Taking a whole afternoon to go to the movies that day. Finding me in the dark in the lounge when Laura was in the shower and seeing me come out of her bedroom when I had to know Jess was in the bach.

By the time he got back into his car, I was pretty straight about what he thought of me.

Monday 15^th December

Laura’s stopped coming around so much, and when she comes it’s only to see Jess. I haven’t asked her what her Dad said to her. But I suspect she got the same message I did. We would hurt Jess if we kept going the way we were, and if I wanted to stay part of the family I’d better figure out fast, which of his daughters I’m married to.

And you know how sometimes things happen just when you need them to? I think maybe that was one of those times. Because Laura is easy to be around, and Jess is busy all the time with Isabelle.

Now I make a point of spending more time with Jess, because she does still have those eyes, that body and that slow way of moving.

And besides, maybe Isabelle needs us both.

But now I have something that might work as lyrics. And they might be worth listening to.

“Hey, can I borrow that desk in my room?” I asked Mum a couple of days after the Laura/hose/dad incident. I figured if I was going to start getting serious about writing lyrics again I needed a place to work.

“Yes, of course,” said Mum. “What do you need it for?”

“Me and Jess have got nowhere to do stuff, except the dining table.”

“All right. It’s where you left it. You can take the office chair too.”

So, I got what I needed together and set up a place I could write music. It still seemed like I was pretending to be a songwriter, but somehow with my own space I hoped it would get more real.

Jess leaned against me, studying the room, her chin on my shoulder. “It’s a good idea,” she said. “You can make us rich.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” I tried to work out if I needed anything else. Probably not. These days you can use a laptop and an interface for most things. Just download the programme you need.

With the desk and keyboard from Mum and Dad’s, the laptop, and of course, old Collins’ notebook. I bought a new interface, so I had everything I was going to need.

Now I just had to get started.

After Isabelle went to sleep each night I shut myself in the room and started. I came up with some lyrics so brilliant I astounded myself.

Yeah right. Really, I sat at the desk each night and didn’t get started.

Well, reading through the journals is me getting started. Since I got married I’ve managed to write stuff down now and then. Even had to buy a new notebook when the one Collins gave me was filled up.

I sit here at my desk and think. What was it that happened that was worth writing lyrics about?

That’s right, fancying my sister in law.

I give my neck a scratch. That could just get sleazy.

So, the first month of song writing turns into a bust. I’ve got the space, I’ve got the gear, and I’ve got nothing to say. Each night I decide I might as well go to bed. I’ve still got work in the morning.

Then one night when I went to bed Jess was already asleep, so I stripped off and slid into bed behind her. I wrapped my arm around her waist and snuggled in like I was going to sleep too. I must have roused her a bit. I might even have done that on purpose.

“Have you made our fortune?” she murmured.

“Not yet.” I snuggled in closer. She turned over in my arms, and kissed me, in that slow way you do things when you are still half asleep, like you’re not sure whether this is for real, or a dream.

Then we made love like that. Slowly and dreamily without talking. Not like we used to, all tangled arms and legs and giggling and falling out of bed sometimes. This was all slow touching, with hands and mouths. Even when Jess knelt over me and lowered herself onto my cock, it was slow, like a dream. I could just see the shape of her through the light that filters through the curtains.

It was beautiful.

Jess went straight back to sleep. I lay in the bed afterwards, with her curled into me again. It was the first time in weeks we’d made love. I started thinking about what it was like when we first discovered sex. We couldn’t get enough.

There was that day Jess took me to a pool in the bush. We spent the afternoon there, and she just stripped off her clothes and ran at the pool, stark naked laughing like she was free. She was like that all the time then. She did whatever she wanted, and she laughed and was happy.

But what she wanted to do most was to paint. She doesn’t do that now. The painting of the three bowls was the last thing she did. It hangs in our kitchen and glowers at us.

Jess didn’t even get to finish school. She spent what should have been her last year there, at home waiting for Isabelle to be born and then looking after her.

It hit me. Jess had lost her future too. She’d lost as much as I had. Maybe I should have turned the spare bedroom into a painting studio.

I cuddled up closer. I’d ask her in the morning. Then all-night ideas for lyrics spun around in my head. The three bowls, the little blue and white jug, and lost worlds got jumbled then started to form a pattern.

Maybe I was only dreaming, and I’d wake up and find the ideas were all rubbish. But it was a start.

And I’d ask Jess if she wanted time to paint. There had to be a way we could both get some of what we wanted.