‘Get off it. I will. Alright? Bloody hell.’

Penelope emerged, shoving open the sliding door. ‘Can you two stop your swearing out here? You’re not in the pub.’

‘Sorry, Pen,’ Kelly said.

‘You should be sorry.’

‘I wasn’t swearing though!’

‘Man of the cloth as you are.’

‘I’m not in the vestments now.’

‘You wear those robes even when you’re not wearing them and you know it.’

He smiled. ‘I should get going.’ To Penelope he said, ‘I just came to tell Vernon here about Caleb. I saw him today.’

Penelope’s face curled in. ‘We don’t talk to him.’

‘I know. Bit unlike you, though, Pen. Not sure how you live with it being that way.’ He stood up once more and said, ‘Thanks for the beer.’

‘No problem,’ Vernon said, but he didn’t stand to see his friend out. Penelope did not walk him to the front door. He heard it shut gently and Penelope, her arms still folded, walked back into the kitchen. Vernon continued to stare at the grave and then stood and walked over. In the dark it appeared like concrete beside the textured grass. He scuffed his foot over it. They’d had an argument here. He and Caleb. About something stupid, something small, and Caleb had stormed indoors. Was there goodness in this world? It didn’t seem there was. He sat down on his haunches and put his hands in the dirt.

Later that night, the two of them in bed, he turned to his wife, who had a Woman’s Weekly in hand and her glasses on, and said, ‘You want to hear what he had to say about Caleb?’

She didn’t say anything and he watched her. What had he done to her, this kind woman, to make her so angry? Was it him? He was too afraid to ask. Soon she said, ‘No. Thank you.’

‘He’s been hurt.’

‘I said I didn’t want to.’

Vernon sighed. Rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Well, you’ll figure it out.’

‘What would you do?’

‘I’d shut up when my wife asked me to.’

He took a moment before he said, ‘We’ve never really talked about it.’

She put her magazine down and placed her hands on it. When she spoke she was measured, calm. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose . . .’

‘You want me to say I hate him?’

He just stared at her. He wondered at her emotionless voice.

‘I don’t know,’ he eventually said.

She picked her magazine back up, flicked a page. ‘I think about him every day, Vernie. Every day. And I picture her . . . Mel’s face, you know? Her cheek, her nose. And I’m so ashamed of him. Everybody looks at me differently now.’

He nodded. ‘Same with me.’

‘It’s not the same for you though, is it?’ Another quick page turn. ‘It’s not the same. When a child does something well the man is praised for his success. When something happens . . . anyway. I don’t need to get into all that. People should look at us different. That boy is our fault. What he did to Melissa . . . It might as well have been your hands around her throat.’