‘I’m not going to talk to Brendan. I’m going to talk to your dad.’

‘This won’t help with Dad, either.’

‘Well,’ the old man said, ‘I reckon I don’t give a shit. I have a shotgun and I have you.’

Sidney shook his head, raised his shoulders, tried to look annoyed. Bloody Brendan and his impulses. Wasn’t the first time he’d landed them in trouble. Sidney didn’t doubt for a second that the old man’s grievances were justified.

‘So what was I going to do?’ the old man said. ‘Go to the cops? Sharon Wornkin? She’s worse than your old man. In your old man’s pocket. So what could I do? You tell me.’

Sidney shrugged again.

‘You know how bloody rude that is, just shrugging like that?’

‘You have a shotgun pointed at my leg, so maybe don’t lecture me on manners.’

This made the old man laugh. ‘Have a bit of respect, mate. At least respect the gun,’ he said, and hefted it. Looked out the window. ‘I’m going to try to appeal to your dad’s sense of being a dad. A father, you know, like me.’

‘He won’t much like you having a shotgun on me.’

The old man did nothing for a moment and then he removed the shotgun from his lap and laid it on the floor of the backseat, in front of all the boxes of tomato paste jars full of weed. ‘There.’

‘You’re trusting.’

‘Not really.’

Sidney thought of his daughter again and what he would do if she were threatened and he knew that this man beside him was exercising restraint; that he, Sidney, would not be so reserved, that he would be right in the face of whoever was doing harm to Amy and he would not just be holding a bloody gun, he’d be pulling the trigger and reloading the shells and pulling it again until he was out of ammunition. The violence he felt at the mere thought was enough to make Sidney sympathise. He looked again at the old man and understood what was making him tick. He knew what he aimed to do and was confident his intentions were good, despite the gun, despite being on the end of it.

They passed a stone memorial on their left that Sidney had never stopped to properly look at. As they rounded a bend a kangaroo stared at them in the headlights from the side of the road. Sidney slowed as they passed and the kangaroo flicked its ears and he kept on. He sped up without noticing the kangaroo on the opposite side of the road. The sound of the engine revving startled it into action and before he was able to nudge at the brakes it bounded in front of them.

Both men were slammed forwards. Sidney’s face smashed into the dashboard. The kangaroo, limbs flailing, collided with the windscreen. There was a cacophony of destroyed glass. He was thrown back and surrounded by shrieking, half of it from him. The old man was gone, swallowed in the chaos. All Sidney could see was fur and all he could smell was animal. He’d somehow managed to slam on the brakes. The car swerved and screeched. The kangaroo was still alive. It clawed and thrummed its legs at Sidney’s chest through the space where the wind-screen had been. He knew his chest was gashed by its claws. He tried to look, to not look. He pushed back at it, hands sticky with blood. No telling where the creature’s head was, what were its legs. He just felt a whirring like a chainsaw against his arm, the left, his chest. He fought again breath.