Toni decided to spend the following hour cocooned in her couch with her matted hair covered by an enchantingly mad pilot's hat. The pink highlighted her cheeks which were ruddy red from crying.

She was thinking about Jack. Or 'Jack Off' as Danny had called him when he'd first made his acquaintance. Jack had spent four hours telling Danny about how he'd survived on $1,557 dollars for a whole year, and with all of his wages he'd bought his brand new car with cash. "I saved so much money," Jack had told Danny passionately. "If I'd bought this baby with a loan I'd be paying my back teeth in interest, probably twice the cost. Hire Purchase is a fool's paradise."

At the first chance possible Danny had taken Toni aside and whispered heartily, "Do you realize that Jack can quite easily bore the average man to tears in less than two hours? I didn't want to tell you this, but I've had the song 'Hit the road, Jack' repeating in my head since I first shook his hand. Really, Toe! Who says words like accrue?"

Toni had laughed. "He works at the bank, Danny, that's his vocab. He has an analytical mind."

"And there I was thinking he had an anally retentive mind."

"Danny!" Toni had admonished him. "Would you like it if I started saying such awful things about your new girlfriend? He's just really shy. He's a very sweet man, and he wouldn't harm a hair on my head."

Well, hadn't she been wrong. It turned out that Jack had no qualms about hurting hairs on Toni's head at all. Jack's face had been burned into Toni's memory like she'd just seen him - an impressive feat considering she hadn't seen his face for over three years. Jack smiled down at her, laughing about the way she had dressed. She remembered how he whispered to her that he loved her, that she was the most important thing in the world to him. But he never meant it ... because he abandoned her. And he didn't even tell her why.

Come on, are we going through this again? We all know why he left. He didn't need to leave a memo or give you a call, for lord's sake ... he didn't need to state the obvious, you know better than anyone why he left.

Toni clutched her head, taking deep breaths to stop the tears from pouring down her cheeks unchecked.

"Yoooo Hooooo." A voice broke the silence.

Toni shot to her feet. Running to the fridge, she strapped a green, Zorro-like mask around her eyes, and rushed to open the door. There on the doorstep stood her grandmother - Gloria Smith, or Granny Smith as they liked to call her. In her arms was a large box full of veggies topped with two perfect little white paper bags. Toni peered inside the bags. Cream doughnuts!

Granny Smith had wispy, naturally-black hair clipped to the side with a trusty bobby pin. She had a beady look about her bright blue eyes that saw things that other people didn't, like her next door neighbor's late night visitor, and her hairdresser's son's hip flask (hidden neatly in his pocket).

Granny Smith stood in her usual garb, a plain pink skirt and a white t-shirt as if she was just off to the Tenpin Bowling league, which was quite unlike all of the other women her age who'd taken to wearing floral designs with wild gusto. Toni's grandmother stood like a military sergeant. "Hel-lo!" she sang out. "I just popped in to give you some veggies."

"Thanks, Gran."

Granny Smith examined the mask strapped to Toni's face. "What on earth is that?"

"Oh this old thing," Toni said awkwardly. "It gets rid of bags under my eyes."

"Oh," Granny Smith said with interest.

"They're all the rage," Toni told her boldly.

Granny Smith loved anything to do with creams and lotions. The last time Toni counted Granny Smith had seven different containers of shampoo, nine different conditioners and countless tubes of body lotions all vying for space under her bathroom sink. If a saleswoman pointed to it, Granny Smith felt obliged to buy it. If the product read, "For ageless skin" then Granny Smith believed it would putty up her wrinkles overnight.

Granny Smith popped her head around Toni's shoulder. "Ohhh, I like that mat ..." She peered into Toni's eyes.

Guiltily, Toni jumped aside. "Oh, of course! Come in for a cup of tea."

"Oh, no, really I shouldn't," her grandmother called as she bustled into Toni's house to put the kettle on. "You know, you really need one of those electric kettles, everyone has them ... even Ann Malcolm. Do you remember Ann Malcolm?"

"Yes, Grandma," Toni said impatiently. "I remember Ann Malcolm."

Every time Granny Smith saw her, there was a new story of how Ann Malcolm had a lovely little footpath surrounded in tiny little pink flowers, and did Toni remember her, before Granny Smith would pause to let the insinuation sink in: 'You could do with some flowers too,' the unspoken voice would whisper.

"What's this?" Granny Smith prodded at the notepad where Toni's To Do list was written.

"I've decided to get my life back on track."

Granny Smith's face filled with relief. "Well, just let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

"Thanks, Gran."

They sat and had a peaceful cup of tea. Her grandmother cut her cream doughnut into eight pieces and ate them prettily while Toni scooped the cream out of her doughnut with her index finger and sucked it up, licked off the icing sugar and then pushed the rest of the doughnut away. She'd give it to Danny later.

"How do you feel?" Granny Smith asked her cautiously.

"Amazing," Toni replied.

"Ann Malcolm's daughter is taking fish oil pills."

Toni really wished everyone would stop hassling her into taking every drug in the world. Just because she wasn't doing summersaults whilst hooting with glee about life, it didn't mean she was living on the edge.

"My book's going well ..." Toni said quickly, changing the subject. "It's about the Mongrel Mob." She didn't feel at all guilty about lying. By the end of the day she would have finished her first chapter.

"Oh dear," Granny Smith said with a pained expression. "I would hate for you to put all the work into something no one wanted to read."

"Of course people would want to read it! It's going to be a thriller - like Once Were Warriors." Toni paused, allowing Granny Smith time for praise, but with none imminent Toni continued, "Although I don't really know too much about them, except sometimes they beat up little old ladies."

"Joan Georges says that they wear bandanas," Granny Smith said . "Only little girls wear bandanas!"

"You're right, I've always wondered why any "hardened criminal" would be adamant about wearing a bandana. So no one suspects their evil intentions, like robbing a bank in a birthday hat?"

"I don't know," Granny Smith said. "Talking of criminals, I've found another one of your grandfather's padlocks." When Toni's grandfather had died four years previously her grandmother had struggled to get in and out of her house due to the innumerable padlocks barring her way. "On our wedding boxes in the attic. I can't seem to find the key."

Toni stared at her grandmother in confusion. "Why would he put a padlock on your wedding photos?"

"He was worried that if someone broke in they might want to steal them."

"Why would someone want to steal photos?" Toni asked. "Identity fraud?" She hoped there was some legitimate excuse.

"I wouldn't have the foggiest," Granny Smith told her honestly. "Your grandfather wasn't very trusting, you know."

Toni nearly snorted aloud. Boy, she could remember just how untrusting he was. He even put a padlock on the long drop at their bach down at the beach, as if someone would want to steal all of his toilet paper. Or better still, manure.

"Sometimes I wish I could have a quick word with him, just to sort things out – do you ever feel like that?"

"Not really," Toni said. There wasn't anything she'd tell her grandfather that she hadn't told him already.

"I hear there are many ways that you can contact the dead." Granny Smith glanced at Toni. "You know, just in case they have anything they wished they'd said."

"Ugh, sounds a bit creepy."

"Well then," Granny Smith sprung to her feet, "I'd best be getting home to find the keys ..."

"Do you need a ride?" Toni asked as Granny Smith marched to the door.

"No!" she cried. "Your car is very unreliable. Maybe it's time you went and bought one of those nice little automatic cars so you can get around safely."

Toni was the proud owner of a 1978 yellow V-dub which broke down a fair bit but was mainly for the look.It wasn't her grandmother's favourite car.

"Ann Malcolm's granddaughter had just bought a lovely little grey Toyota."

"Ok then, Gran," Toni said with a polite smile. "I'll think about it." The voice in her head shouted, "Over my dead body!"

Pleased that she'd said her piece Granny Smith marched off into the distance with her arms swinging violently. "Cheerio!" she sang over her shoulder.

Toni liked to watch her grandmother walk. There was something slightly unhinged about the way Granny Smith thrust her chin so high in the air. She would have continued to watch her grandmother evaluating the houses she marched past if it weren't for her busy schedule with the couch.