She left the lizard and walked back until she could see the car huddled under the tree. His figure was invisible, even the trailing arm. She walked towards it, wondering how they had grown so far apart, bound now only by need, the tyranny of distance, the pair of them against this empty world. She reeled the car in, thinking of water, of shade, of taking off the hat and flapping it at her damp hair, of the coolness generated by speed. She thought about the beckoning Southern Ocean with its taint of the Antarctic, roaring against the coast.

          She watched with tenderness as first his arm – yes, pink – and then his head, slumped against the seat rest, came into view. So vulnerable when he was asleep, the shuttered look of his eyes gone. She felt that the elastic that had bound them had – not snapped – but given way, slowly, inexorably. She saw now that they would not stay together much longer, not once their journey was over. They had done enough, she had done enough, to survive. As she stood, examining him, he was already becoming a fond memory, someone she could tell stories about. About how they hit the kangaroo. About how they had to go back and kill it. She would no longer have to adjust to his moods and whims, fitting herself into the space that he left. She breathed easier and looked down at him as he smiled faintly at some dream memory and shifted in his sleep.

          She took off her hat and shaded his pink arm with it, reached in gently to kiss him on the tip of his nose. He blinked and stirred and grumbled in his sleep. Time was getting on. It was her turn to shake him into action, to push them both on. His eyes opened like a baby’s, softly gummed with sleep.

          ‘Wake up,’ she said, and smiled. ‘Wake up, kangaroo killer.’

          ‘What?’ he said, but she had moved away, crossing round to get into the driver’s seat again and turning the key in the ignition.

          ‘Nothing,’ she said, smiling a little and setting off down the road.