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.The photographs were of Leo and his friends.Leo in Hanoi and Paris and Mexico City.Leo and Dawn in Cuba.Leo and Tom Jords wearing pink T-shirts emblazoned with a black Women’s Liberation fist at Mardi Gras.On the small table there was an old black and white photograph of their mother, when she was a young girl in Rome, her face sullen as she braved the camera.Of Saverio and their father there was nothing at all, not one snapshot.He shouldn’t have come.Leo’s true family had been the men and women now laughing and swapping reminiscences on the verandah outside.There was a muffled, ‘Can I come in?’, and Saverio swung around.Julian was holding out a glass of wine with an apologetic smile.Saverio took it and gestured for Julian to come in.‘You should be the one sleeping in here,’ Saverio said quietly.Julian laughed and shook his head.‘It’s fine.The old gang are going to sleep on mattresses and sleeping bags on the living-room floor.We’ll probably keep you awake with our drunken raves.’ Julian’s brow suddenly squashed into a frown.‘Unless you prefer not to sleep in.’‘No, no, that’s fine.Thanks—it’s kind of you.’Saverio was not frightened of Leo’s ghost.They had that in common, brothers in their rationalism and atheism, their father’s sons.Julian walked around the bed and started flicking through the canvases against the wall.‘I’ll have to sort through all of these before I head back to Sydney.Leo’s named me executor of his estate.’ Julian’s voice had dropped to an anxious whisper.‘That’s how it should be.’Saverio glimpsed a corner of a painting, the strokes thick, the colours warm, fiery.A lavender-veined penis pushing through a glory hole.Julian let the canvases drop.He seemed to be searching the walls of the room and his gaze lighted on a small, vivid colour Polaroid.It was of a beaming Filipino woman holding a chuckling naked boy.Julian’s features, his smile, his mischievous eyes, were unmistakable.Julian unpinned the Polaroid and put it in his shirt pocket.‘Leo was always meant to give that back.It’s the only photo I have of me and Mum back in Manila.’Saverio felt as if he were sinking.He had hoped that it would be cooler up in the hills but he had forgotten that it was impossible to escape the humidity in this part of the world.He wanted to be back in Melbourne, in less intense light, where he didn’t feel that every corner and spare inch of space was illuminated.He didn’t want to be sipping red wine.He wanted a beer.He didn’t know how to make conversation with these people, even Julian who had always been kind to him and Rachel.There was the sound of smashing glass on the verandah and peals of laughter.‘It’s probably going to be like this all night.’Saverio searched his pockets, clasped the car keys.‘I’m going to go into town.Do we need anything?’Julian, surprised, shook his head.‘I’ll see you in a hour or two.’‘Sav, will you deliver a eulogy tomorrow?’He felt snookered.No, he did not want to deliver a eulogy.There was absolutely nothing to say.With a toss of his chin, Julian indicated the world outside.‘We’d all appreciate it.’I thought you didn’t believe in family.I thought you believed it was a patriarchal capitalist construct.But maybe they did now.Maybe now they believed in family and shares and television and parliamentary democracy.He just wanted to leave the room, the house, the unbearable heat.He nodded and Julian smiled.Saverio almost ran to the verandah.An old lime Volkswagen Beetle was coming up the drive.There was a noisy crunching of the gears, and then a small shudder before it came to a halt.Saverio looked through the flyscreen door to see everyone jump off the verandah and cluster around the white-haired woman who climbed out of the car.She wore faded bermuda shorts and a yellow singlet.A much younger woman stepped out from the driver’s side.She looked like she was still shedding adolescence.She was wearing a pink see-through shirt and even from behind the screen Saverio could see the outline of the black bra beneath.Julian pushed past him through the door and Saverio almost fell out onto the verandah
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