She ran up the hotel stairs because her mother had said her father would be at the top. It was her birthday so she expected her father would have a surprise. Birthdays were all about surprise, that’s why she looked forward to them. The stairs were covered in carpet so they weren’t slippery and she wanted to run. She liked running and it was her birthday.

 All the way down Anzac Parade and through the Cross she’d been talking about her birthday and what her father would get her. Maybe the chemistry kit she’d seen in the city, or a new game she could play with her sister. She hoped it wasn’t clothes, clothes were boring, though she needed new pyjamas she could wear at boarding school. Fleece-lined because it was cold, the boarding school was in the mountains. At least her father wouldn’t confuse her birthday with Christmas like most people did when they tried to buy her one present for both. He was used to her birthday being when it was and knew what she thought about those people. Anyway, she wondered what her father was doing at the hotel. Usually, her mother ran the restaurant there. Why was her father there and her mother parking the car?

Her mother had dropped them off at the entrance to the stairs and told her to run up the stairs. Her sister, Lucy, was following more slowly, she was only six after all and it wasn’t her birthday. It was Sophie’s ninth birthday. The restaurant foyer were her father had the present she expected had the same light-coloured carpet and the doors were light-coloured wood, except the restaurant doors, which were glass. She jumped into her father’s arms. “What did you get for my birthday, Daddy?”

He’d forgotten her birthday. She could see by the way he turned away and she was looking over the top of his head. He didn’t have much hair. He hadn’t even confused her birthday with Christmas, he’d forgotten altogether. No present waiting for her. He looked embarrassed. There was no expression on his face but he was looking at his shoulder, at the grey striped suit coat. She didn’t know what to say or how to react. She jumped out of her father’s arms and tidied her sister’s dress. Lucy had blonde hair which was so fine it got blown about. Sophie straightened it. Her birthday wasn’t so important.

Her father took them into the restaurant and found them something to eat. They sat at one of the tables, which were empty now because the restaurant was closed and ate. The food was boring, meat and potatoes and beans. Sophie didn’t like beans but she did like the potatoes which were sort of brown and fried. Then her father produced a cake with nine candles and Sophie cheered up. It was a chocolate cake and was cut up and served by one of the waiters while her dad disappeared out the back because he had things to do. Lucy had cake all over her face and dress and Sophie cleaned her up  with a serviette. Her father didn’t come back and then their mother came to take them to their grandmother. “Your father’s very busy,” she said. She herded them downstairs and into the car.

Grandmummy lived in a flat in Kingsford, full of old ornaments and laces and embroideries they’d brought from Hungary and postcards from their aunt in Canada. In a big bedroom at the end of the flat was her grandfather’s desk but he had died two years ago and the desk had her grandmother’s make-up mirror and Sophie’s photo under the glass. She was two and looked like Lucy. Sophie was much older now. She was allowed to look through Grandmummy’s drawers and the big red box that had Grandmummy’s favourite things in it. She liked looking at the pictures she’d drawn when she was younger and her Canadian cousin’s poems. There were pages of tongue twisters too that her grandmother had practised when she was learning English. She thought her grandmother was good at English now though she had a funny accent. She didn’t sound like Sophie’s teachers or her English Nana.

At their grandmother’s they played with toys and Grandmummy had lots of presents for Sophie to open and biscuits and lollies to eat. Lucy helped her open the presents, throwing the wrapping paper and ribbon around, till the biscuits came out and Lucy transferred her loyalties. Sophie played dominoes with her mother and they played the game where they were flying to Canada then Grandmummy brought out another cake, a lemon one this time, Sophie’s favourite, with nine yellow and orange candles. Sophie blew them out and wished that all her birthdays would be fun and full of presents. She hoped so.

Two weeks later they flew to Melbourne to visit their auntie. That was another of Sophie’s presents, her first time on a plane not just flying on the chair in her grandmother’s lounge room. She would see Melbourne and she would see what it was like flying on a real plane. Lucy had to sit on their mother’s lap, but Sophie had a seat by herself and could look out the window. She watched the plane drive along the runway and then get faster and faster till it lifted its wheels and took off diagonally into the air. Air hostesses came round with hot towels and then with food on little divided trays. There was a breadroll and a packet with butter. The cutlery was in a plastic bag with a serviette and salt and pepper packets. There was a little tray of fresh fruit compote and a bigger tray with silver paper on top. It was hot. Finally, there was a cup and a bite-sized chocolate. She could save the chocolate, she put it in her bag to have later. Her mother tried to take the empty cup but she wouldn’t let her. “It’s for coffee,” her mother said but when the air hostess came round with jugs of coffee and tea, she asked for milk instead. To go with her food, she said and looked at her mother.

The flight wasn’t very long. Once the trays were cleared, she read her book while Lucy played with toys the air hostess gave her. For landing she had to put her seatbelt on again and her ears hurt even though they bought hot towels again and lollies to chew. Out the window, it was the reverse of when they took off, the plane got nearer and nearer the ground till ‘thud’, the wheels hit the ground and they were down, and she squiggled and squirmed in her seat till the seatbelt sign went off and mother got up and took their bags down.

Melbourne was a lot like Sydney and Sophie was a little disappointed though she didn’t know why or what she expected. Both Melbourne and Sydney were big cities, after all. Her auntie lived in a flat in St Kilda with her uncle and two daughters. Her youngest daughter was a toddler who needed help in the toilet and followed Sophie around. The other daughter was Lucy’s age and there were plenty of children who lived in the block of flats, and a big area of concrete to play on, so Sophie wasn’t bored. Sometimes she couldn’t play because she had terrible pains in her chest and they hurt so much she just had to lie on the bed until they went away. She always moaned a lot. She didn’t know where the pains came from, her mother said she was growing breasts but her aunt said that wasn’t possible, she was only nine after all. Sophie didn’t care, she just wished the pain would go away and she hoped they wouldn’t be big breasts like her mother’s.

There was plenty to do in Melbourne. Sophie went for a ride on a tram. There were no trams in Sydney. There hadn’t been since she was a little girl and used to ride down to Maroubra with her grandmother. She wanted to go on a tram again though it was no different from taking a bus. Kind of a cross between a bus and a train because she could see the traffic but a tram was somehow smoother than a bus. Though it still had people on who wanted you to pay the fare. Her mother paid. She went shopping with her mother. They went to shops all over central Melbourne and then they had coffee at her auntie’s café. Sophie had a vanilla milkshake. They offered her chocolate but chocolate was boring. It was a thick black syrup. Vanilla syrup was browner. Lucy had chocolate. Only little girls liked chocolate, not big girls like Sophie.

Once they went to a restaurant where they had a view of a lake. The lake was mostly deserted because it was cold and there was a wind blowing but Sophie saw a few white birds. The restaurant had milkshakes and cakes and good food so they had sandwiches and cake for lunch and Sophie looked out at the lake while Lucy played with her auntie’s children. All the children went home together in her auntie’s car and there was lots of fidgeting on the back seat. And then they had to fly back to Sydney which was the same as coming to Melbourne but in reverse. It was just as exciting too till they landed in Sydney and life began again.

They didn’t go to see her father when they got back. Sophie thought he would be worried about them. She thought she would see him in the flat he kept opposite her grandmother but there were strangers living there and Grandmummy took her hand when she knocked. She asked her mother where he was. Her mother didn’t say anything at first and neither did her grandmother.

“He sold the restaurant,” her mother said one day when they’d been at boarding school two terms. He didn’t come to visit and neither did their mother. The school term had started but they were still at Grandmummy’s. The strangers in her father’s flat were very friendly.

“I don’t know where he is now. I’ve tried to look but I can’t find him.”

“I want to tell him about what we did in Melbourne,” Sophie said.

“He left when we we’re in Melbourne,” her mother said. “He sold the restaurant and he and his girlfriend left. I can’t find his parents either.”

“The restaurant in the hotel,” Sophie asked. ”Don’t you own it”?

“Married women don’t own anything.”