IT’S SEPTEMBER 2010, one of those gloriously bright, almost clichéd Perth afternoons. My husband and I haven’t yet separated, but we will soon. At the moment, though, we have a house to sell, one that’s been on the market for six weeks without an offer. The agent tells us it’s slow out there, and we shouldn’t worry, but I’m convinced this house is overflowing with accumulated stress, and that people walking through the front door are repelled by the weight of our tension. My solution is to redecorate, to fill our space with shades of yellow – potted marigold on the front doorstep, a pastel sketch of a haloed naked girl, tulips in a vase. Yellow, I tell myself, will bring joy. Yellow will change everything. In any case, the act of redecorating comforts me. I’ve read about this before – it’s the process rather than the result, the act of moving things around, a feeling of newness. Rupture: that’s the word the essayist Pauline Garvey uses for it. I’m trying to rupture my routine, my circumstances.

‘Mummy, what’s that?’ my son asks.