Yvonne tried to get James’s attention by balancing peas on her fork, until Aunty Doris slapped her daughter hard across both thighs with the flat of her hand.

‘Listen to Father,’ she said, and whipped James’s plate away.

After tea, while James was eating the cheese on toast his aunt had hurriedly prepared, Yvonne left the sounds of the television news in the next room to join him.

‘Want some?’ he said.

‘No thank you,’ she replied, tapping the clean surface of the table with one finger.

He chewed and they both smiled.

‘Father said vegetarians are going to ruin life on the land for all farming families.’

James had just started another piece of toast, but he had his answer ready.

‘Well, bread is made with wheat, and wheat is made by farmers,’ he replied.

‘Father said humans have been eating meat since we were cavemen.’

‘Just because we’ve done something in the past, doesn’t mean we have to keep doing it, you know?’

‘Well, Mother said humans wouldn’t have become civilised if we didn’t eat meat.’

James stared at his cousin. ‘You don’t even know what “civilised” means.’

Yvonne looked back to where the outline of Uncle Bill’s chair showed against the light of the television, put her chin down on her paired, flat hands, and shook her head.

James felt that if he could tell it to her like a story it would make sense. ‘At school, we’ve been learning about cave paintings, and the teacher said that human beings wouldn’t have even started to paint pictures and tell stories until we started farming,’ he said. ‘Farming crops meant staying in one place instead of wandering around. It meant cavemen had time to sit around their fires and tell stories.’

‘Like the aborigines?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘My teacher said there are no aborigines left in Kippen.’

‘There was one at my school, when we lived up here,’ James said, remembering the girl in his class at Kippen Primary. Her name escaped him at that moment, but she’d been as enthusiastic as him about building stick houses around the roots of the large gum tree in one corner of the school yard.

‘Well, there aren’t any now,’ Yvonne said, chasing his old friend’s name away completely. ‘Father said you can’t get them to stick around long enough to collect their pay. They wander around a lot, and they eat meat.’

James nodded, watching his cousin’s legs swinging enthusiastically.

‘And they always have,’ she said, cocking her head like she’d scored a point. ‘I might become a vegetarian too,’ she added, and reached for a piece of toast.

‘You wouldn’t last a day.’

James woke when Tony knocked on the door frame before the sun was up.

‘Alright if I use the shower, you fellas?’ his cousin asked.

James nodded, and his cousin walked past the foot of the two beds.