‘Don’t know about a dress,’ said Wal. ‘I got a idea, though.’

His wife stood tossing her hair. It was natural at least; the sun had done it. All the kids had inherited their mother’s colour, and when they stood together, golden-skinned, tossing back their unmanageable hair, you would have said a mob of taffy brumbies.

‘What is the bloody idea?’ she asked, because she couldn’t go on standing there.

‘Pick up a coupla cold bottles, and spend the mornun at the dump.’

‘But that’s the same old idea,’ she grumbled.

‘No, it aint’. Not our own dump. We ain’t done Sarsaparilla since Christmas.’

She began to grumble her way across the yard and into the house. A smell of sink strayed out of grey, unpainted weatherboard, to oppose the stench of crushed boggabri and cotton pear. Perhaps because Whalleys were in the bits-and-pieces trade their home was threatening to give in to them.

Wal Whalley did the dumps. Of course there were the other lurks besides. But no one had an eye like Wal for the things a person needs: dead batteries and musical bedsteads, a carpet you wouldn’t notice was stained, wire, and again wire, clocks only waiting to jump back into the race of time. Objects of commerce and mystery littered Whalleys’ back yard. Best of all, a rusty boiler into which the twins would climb to play at cubby.

‘Eh Waddaboutut?’ Wal shouted, and pushed against his wife with his side.

She almost put her foot through the hole that had come in the kitchen boards.

‘Waddabout what?’

Half-suspecting, she half-sniggered. Because Wal knew how to play on her weakness.

‘The fuckun idea!’

So that she began again to grumble. As she slopped through the house her clothes irritated her skin. The sunlight fell yellow on the grey masses of the unmade beds, turned the fluff in the corners of the rooms to gold. Something was nagging at her, something heavy continued to weigh her down.

Of course. It was the funeral.

‘Why, Wal,’ she said, the way she would suddenly come round, ‘you could certainly of thought of a worse idea. It’ll keep the kids out of mischief. Wonder if that bloody Lummy’s gunna decide to honour us?’

‘One day I’ll knock ’is block off,’ said Wal.

‘He’s only at the awkward age.’

She stood at the window, looking as though she might know the hell of a lot. It was the funeral made her feel solemn. Brought the goose-flesh out on her.

‘Good job you thought about the dump,’ she said, outstaring a red-brick propriety the other side of the road. ‘If there’s anythun gets me down, it’s havin’ ter watch a funeral pass.’

‘Won’t be from ’ere,’ he consoled. ‘They took ’er away same evenun. It’s gunna start from Jackson’s Personal Service.’

‘Good job she popped off at the beginnun of the week. They’re not so personal at the week-end.’

She began to prepare for the journey to the dump. Pulled her frock down a bit. Slipped on a pair of shoes.