‘Oh, that’s not fair, Tammy. Your poor kids. Poor you!’

‘And none of this conversation is funny. Let’s change the subject again.’

‘Okay, well, here’s something different. I went to the pub the other night, to meet some of the local farmers, and the publican tried to look down my shirt. I haven’t had that happen in years.’

‘Gross! What did you do?’

‘I probably should have called him on it but I just let it go. Easier than making a scene.’

‘Huh! The #MeToo movement will have you for not doing anything about it.’

‘I think we’ve all lost the ability to laugh at ourselves, you know. A bloke having a bit of a look isn’t such a big deal. It’s the ones who touch and intimidate that need to be made examples of.’

‘I can still remember how my boss tried to kiss me in the ute one lunchtime. Despite the fact he had a wife and three small children. That was in the first piggery I ever worked at.’

‘Now, they’re the ones who need to be called out,’ Zara said.

Tammy gave a little laugh. ‘Do you think we’ve solved the world’s problems tonight?’

Zara snorted. ‘I don’t think so! Reckon there are a few we’ve yet to solve!’

‘I’m just about home again, so I’d better go. Got to feed the kids and be up early tomorrow so we can get all the jobs done before sports day.’

‘So good to hear your voice.’

‘And yours. I hope things aren’t too difficult for you over the next few months.’

‘Tammy, between you and me, I don’t think it will be that long.’

‘Much love, Zara.’

‘You too.’ She pressed the disconnect button and sat there staring at the soundless TV, thinking about their conversation.

Then she got up and googled ‘protesters and piggeries’. The hits were many and varied. There were newspaper reports and photos of people, some well dressed, some in ripped jeans and T-shirts with slogans like: Pigs are our friends, not food or Don’t eat your mate.

A photo caught her eye and she enlarged it on her screen. One of the girls looked like Sophie Grawd. Interesting that she should be protesting after the death of her dad during a protest. Quickly she googled ‘Sophie Grawd, piggery protestors’. There wasn’t much of interest there: stories that Zara herself had written about the court case, a few close-up photos of Sophie and her mother. Then she saw a website entitled ‘Piggeries, the other story’. Zara clicked on that and found it wasn’t a story on piggeries as she’d thought, but a website run by activists called Voices for Animals, reporting their opinion about the cruelty of farming pigs, and she had opened the membership page. Sophie’s name was in the public membership list.

That’s interesting, Zara thought. I’m sure that’s the organisation her father was involved with. She had a quick look around the website and realised it was a fairly mild activist group rather than a militant one. Their campaigns had been silent vigils outside abattoirs, praying for animals’ souls, or standing quietly on the steps of Parliament House asking for the outlawing of farming animals for meat. They didn’t seem to be confrontational or aggressive. That fitted with the little she knew about Sophie. She likely wouldn’t want to be involved with anything potentially violent after the death of her dad.