James adjusted his gaze to check for traffic coming from behind. By the time he’d turned back and was looking across to the Jones farm, Andy Jones was strolling up the driveway towards the gate, craning his neck to look at James’s car.

And he knew it was James’s car.

And James knew the estate agent said he’d be out of town that whole day.

It was too late to do anything. As James sped past, the liar Mr Jones threw a pointed finger at him and made a noise he didn’t quite hear through the window. He’d heard it before. It sounded like one animal mocking another.

James expected to see the weather-beaten faces of his gene pool as he passed Kippen Presbyterian church in the hire car, but apart from the hearse at the front door, the place seemed empty for a funeral that was meant to have started five minutes ago.

As he turned into the car park, Yvonne, Pete and the girls were just getting out of their old four-wheel drive.

James pulled up at a distance, not feeling ready to start asking awkward questions and talking about hitting the pause button on proceedings. He stretched his spine up into the padding of the car seat, closed his eyes, and counted the sounds he could hear. His cousin helping her daughters into their cardigans; kids playing at the far end of the adjacent field; cars passing on the main street; magpies fighting in the trees across the road, and someone mowing their lawn over the side fence of the units opposite. Finally, he had to acknowledge the call of the organist from the church.

Queer suicide: community stays away.

The gravel underfoot announced his approach to his nieces, who leaned against their parents in a kind of silent alarm at an unfamiliar world.

‘G’day,’ he said, kissing Yvonne between drags on her cigarette.

She smiled and commanded her progeny: ‘Say hello to Cousin Jamie.’

They did, in rehearsed unison. Pete pumped James’s hand, looking this way and that, laughing in that careless, breathy way, all on the surface.

‘Take the girls in,’ Yvonne said, guiding her twin daughters’ hands to their father’s and returning the cigarette to her lips, sucking deep. ‘Ready for this?’ she said to James.

He shrugged.

‘So, how is Doris holding up?’ Yvonne said, pushing out the smoke.

‘Kind of like it hasn’t actually happened,’ James said.

Yvonne laughed and forced the rest of the air out of her lungs, offering him the box of cigarettes with the lid open.

‘No thanks.’

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘No one’s forcing you. What about Father? Did you see him?’

James nodded. ‘I think they’re both deep in denial.’

Yvonne snorted and shook her head as she held the smoke in. ‘Gone back into it, more like. You told me you hadn’t been out to the farm,’ she added.