Cleaning it is gross, I agree. But I’ll take this over going into the shops and getting that boxed frozen fish rubbish any day.

I lean too close and Nan growls at me for getting in her light while she’s working. She always smells like Imperial Leather soap, White Ox tobacco and talcum powder. Mum said the only thing that’d changed since she was a kid is the brands. It sounds like it should smell bad, but it never does. It smells like home.

‘Nan, when ya gonna let me do that?’

‘When I’m sure you can do it proper way.’

‘But how will you know if you never let me?’

She snorts. ‘I’ll know before you.’

Fish wrapped, she takes a stick and digs out some coals, placing her parcels in and covering them. Stretching her back out, she lets out a big groan, then settles down onto one of the blankets we’d laid out by the fire. Nan always keeps blankets in her car, those old scratchy hospital ones.

‘Clean up them guts, granddaughters, and make your nan a cuppa.’

I go for the guts while Laney does the tea. We already had the billy on so it would be ready for Nan. When I get back to the fire Laney has hopped onto one blanket, wrapping a second one tight around her. She lifts one side for me and I climb in, cuddling close. We sit in silence watching the flames.

‘Nights like this remind me of your great-grandmother’s old humpy by the river,’ Nan says, smiling into her tea.

She reaches into her massive bag that she dares call a purse, pulling out her rollies and getting a pre-prepared one that she dips into the embers till she has a nice cherry on it. She takes one deep drag, puffing smoke into the flames and watching it curl upward. Fear-tinged excitement rattles my heart to life. I know what is coming next. Laney and I cling closer, clasping each other’s hands tight as we wait.

‘He used to tell me the best stories, my old dad. Knew a lot of things.’ Nan’s gaze is lost in the fire and her memories. ‘Couldn’t teach us much, not language for sure, that old Protector fulla woulda taken us. But he told us what we needed to be safe.’

Sadness flows out of her then, mingling with the dirt and ash and painting the earth in pain. Another big draw, more smoke.

‘Never say their names at night, daughters, or you’ll call them to you. Don’t whistle, don’t draw in the dirt, don’t sweep the ground neither. Not in the night or they’ll come. These fullas ere, look.’

She holds her hand up, palm facing out and does that claw clenching move that we all know and are scared of, even adults.

Drag. Puff.