Nobody passes. Nothing happens. I begin to get impatient, and I start to worry that he has decided to give up and go home before he’s finished the job. But when he does come down the road, I’m not surprised by his appearance, but by the speed he is doing. He is really motoring. He takes the corner at Wilson Road in a four-wheel drift, and keeps pushing it until he reaches Elaine’s mailbox, where he slides to a stop in spray of dust and gravel.

There is a car already there, waiting. A man in an old hat gets out of the car, walks to the back of Grant’s ute, and starts looking through the packages of mail — everyone’s mail. Grant does not get out of his machine or even acknowledge what is going on. When the man in the hat is finished, he passes something from his pocket through the window to Grant, then goes back to his car empty-handed, gets in, and drives away, up Wilson Road. When he is gone, Grant gets out of his vehicle, drops mail in Elaine’s mailbox, gets back in his ute, and casually makes his way up Wilson Road.

I trip trying to get into the driver’s seat too quickly. When I gather myself, I start my vehicle, pull out of the table drain, and flatten it. The ute leaps over the incline on the edge of the road, and I fang it down the gravel, the tyres only just holding. I reach my mailbox, but Grant has come and gone. He must be up the end of the road. I park my ute perpendicular, across the width of the road, blocking anyone who might try to pass. I check the mail: letters, brochures, but no boxes. What can this mean? Have I got it completely wrong again? Grant reappears, coming back from Ben’s and Ian’s. I stand and wait, expecting he will veer out into the paddock to go round me. He doesn’t. He slows, stops just short of the door of my ute, and then puts his head out of his window.

‘What the fuck are you doing now, you loony?’

Since he hasn’t delivered any boxes, I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing.

‘Got any boxes for me?’

‘No. Fuck off out of the way. It’s probably an offence to get in the road of a postman.’

‘Who gave you the boxes that were delivered to me?’

‘What? No one. The fucking mail service. Get out of the way, or I’ll call the cops. Dickwit.’

I can’t think of my next step, so I edge my ute forward enough for him to get around me. He over-revs the motor as he goes past.