"Have you checked the mail?" Rona asked Miranda. It was one of the rare week-days when they were both at home at the same time, both having a day off work.

"Has it come?" Miranda asked.

"Usually comes by now." Rona went out to check. She came back a moment later with a handful of envelopes.

She flicked through them, reading the names out loud. "Miranda Weyman!" she said, handing an envelope to Miranda. "Miranda Weyman again. Rona McKendrie." She tucked the envelope under her arm for later. "'To the householder'!"

"Foxtel again?"

"Yeah." Rona continued reading. "Peter Barnardo." She looked at Miranda. "Who the hell's Peter Barnardo?"

Miranda shrugged. "Someone who used to live here, I guess."

"Not Known At This Address" Rona said, dropping the envelope in the kitchen bin. She looked at the next envelope. "Huh. Here's one addressed to all of us."

"Give us a look." Miranda reached out her hand, and Rona gave her the envelope. Miranda opened it and pulled out the letter inside.

"Bugger!" she exclaimed in disbelief after she'd read it. "Bugger."

"What is it?"

"It's from the agent. Our lease expires in March, right?"

"Are they kicking us out?" Rona asked, looking around with sudden warmth at the cracks in the wall that needed to be fixed, the tiles that needed to be replaced.

"No" Miranda said. "We can stay here. But they're increasing the rent."

"By how much?"

Miranda did a quick calculation in her head. "Like, an extra eighty dollars a month."

"Shit!" Rona added eighty dollars to the amount she was already paying for rent. "I can't afford that! I can barely afford the rent now!"

"I can afford it" Miranda said, as if that might reassure Rona, "but I don't really want to."

"Well - fuck! Just like that! Can they do that?"

"Says sixty days here" Miranda said, waving the letter. "They say that's how much time they have to give us. By law." Miranda grew sanguine. "But, I mean, they haven't put the rent up the whole time we've been here. We've done pretty well."

"Yeah, but -" Rona was as ready to be reasonable - "it's fucked! All the same."