To block it out, I say loudly, ‘I don’t think it’s any of your business.’

He gives a half nod, and a shrug as if to say If that’s the way it’s going to be, and turns and walks towards the front door. It lights a little fire of rage inside me.

‘What precious thing are you expecting in the mail? A gimp suit?’

‘Fuck off, you loser.’ He says it over his shoulder, my insults nothing to him.

‘The souls of abused Asian boys?’ I am yelling it from the doorway as he gets into his ute and puts the finger up at me.

I walk across the lawn following him, bad-mouthing him all the way out of the garden and down the road.

Then I stride back up to the garden shed, and drag the mower out, fill it, check the oil, and proceed to mow the perimeter of James’s area.

After the mowing, I play the message on the answering machine. It says nothing about boxes. It is a man from the Department of Agriculture doing a survey on whether I am baiting foxes.

Exhausted from the mowing and the stress of the day, I decide I will have a drink. I’m not an alcoholic, so it’s not like I can never drink. It’s just that I choose not to. But when I choose to, it is a serious decision. So instead of dinner I have a beer, and then another one, and another few. I open a bottle of red and drink it, and then manage a couple of scotches, because there is some in the cupboard. I pass out on the couch in my clothes.

2

2

I’m woken by a rapping on the back door that my half-asleep brain tells me is the rattle of a Thompson gun held by Ben in a three-piece suit backed up by Elaine in full gangster-moll attire, blonde bob included. But then somebody yells, ‘Dave!’ and I wake properly, and know it is the voice of my brother-in-law Mick, and I think perhaps this really is Armageddon. I open the door for him and manage a ‘Hey’ before I go to the sink for water.

‘Mate, you look rough,’ he says, delighted at my poor state and his relative exuberance. ‘I thought you might have been dead.’

‘I’m not. Just a bit of flu.’

‘Flu be buggered. You’re hungover. I can smell it.’

‘What are you doing here?’ The water is cool and clean, and I wish for a bathfull of it.

‘I’m here for you.’

Mick is short, fit, and useless. I don’t need two useless people in the house.

‘Oh good.’

‘Seriously. I know how tough things have been for you, so I thought I’d better come and keep you company.’