‘Caught my arm on a nail yesterday,’ Tony said. ‘Bloody hurt,’ he added, noticing James looking at his reflection and the key. ‘So how old are you now, Jamie? Sixteen?’

‘Sixteen in a couple of months,’ James said, turning away from his cousin’s big body and the way it stole all the space in the mirror.

‘More than a couple,’ Alan said, finally emerging.

James didn’t look, he just kept beating his heels into the bed base.

Yvonne called them for cheese and toast. James retreated into the bathroom and went to secure the door, but there was no lock.

James woke to the sounds of a ute starting. The distant melody of a country radio station drew him out of sleep. Alan’s bed was an empty mess. Through the high window, sun leaked from behind a bank of heavy clouds.

‘Good afternoon,’ Aunty Doris said as he scuffed into the kitchen.

James looked to the clock near the door. It was quarter past seven.

‘Your brother’s gone with your uncle and Tony today. Farm work always starts early and finishes late,’ Aunty Doris said, and pointed to the toaster as she headed for the laundry. ‘We all make our own here.’

Yvonne was dressed already. ‘I’m too young to go out with Father,’ she announced. ‘And girls don’t have to. Didn’t you set your alarm?’

James shook his head, holding a knife upwards as he hovered by the toaster.

‘You don’t have to pop it up. It does it by itself,’ Yvonne said. ‘Don’t change the setting. Mother will know.’

‘Pass the butter and things to your cousin,’ Aunty Doris said to Yvonne as she stuffed the washing machine. ‘Then get the cloth and do the table.’

James buttered his toast, spread honey on one slice, and took it to his mouth as a trail of amber ran down the cupboard and onto the floor. In a moment Yvonne had it wiped away, a look on her face that told him to say nothing.

‘You’ll have to come to town with us,’ Aunty Doris said, wrenching the machine knobs. ‘You can’t stay here by yourself.’

‘Mother always chats to everyone,’ Yvonne told James, slamming herself rhythmically into the car seat, eyes on Aunty Doris outside the bank. ‘I tooted the horn once and got a smack,’ she added, fingers walking dangerously along the edge of the steering wheel.

His aunt wrenched the door open and threw her bag against her daughter’s legs.

‘What did Sal want?’ Yvonne said.

‘Mrs Beaumont to you,’ Aunty Doris said, getting in. ‘She’s going to drop me the key to the Women’s Club, that way we can set a few things up before the big day.’

Yvonne turned to James. ‘You’re a writer, I hear,’ she said, in her best impersonation of her mother. ‘So you can do the family tree.’

‘Family tree?’