‘I’m learning to be faster with my sums,’ I replied. ‘And she’s teaching us biology, geography.’

He struck a match on the verandah post, cupping it and sucking in until the tip of his cigarette glowed red. He squinted at me, exhaling, a cloud of smoke dissipating around us.

‘Fat lot of good that’ll do you. Who needs to know where Africa is if you can’t find your own arse?’

Jack rescued me then, saying that Mum needed my help in the kitchen. When I went she wasn’t there, but he rolled his eyes and sat on the bench, crunching an apple. ‘Avoid him if you can, he’s cross about Fred.’

‘Why?’

And that was how I learned that Fred was moving to Sydney, and I admit my first thought was for myself and how there would be more cows to milk when Fred was gone. I would be the eldest child and the most responsible, and Dad was unpredictable. We knew somehow to blame it on the war. He had fought in France. Of the men he was over there with, one had an amputated leg, one a disfigured face, one a hand blown to bits. Some of the men hadn’t returned. Dad’s injuries were the less visible sort; the sort which made him drink, and snap into a rage at something as small as a button missing from his shirt. We cowered like dogs when he’d been drinking, doing our best to stay out of his sight.

Dad had burst capillaries in his cheeks and nose, his eyes dripped and his nose watered. There were blisters on his lips from the sun and his yellowed thick fingernails were split and broken. Sometimes I looked at him and wondered if my mum had ever desired him. But if I came across him splitting firewood, snigging logs with a chain, shovelling out the yards, I saw his strong back, his thick neck, his capable arms. I saw from afar what made no sense up close.

Milking was not just mornings but afternoons as well. On school days I rode the half-hour home to milk again, Blackie at my side, and then finished in time for tea. Afterwards there were dishes to wash, then schoolwork, until I could no longer keep my eyes open and went to bed. Weekends were no break from work, but Sundays there was Mum’s roast to look forward to. Pumpkin skin blackened and flesh melting into the juice of the lamb. Gravy thickened with flour and stretched with water from the kettle, always a splash of sherry or brandy from the cupboard to the left of the stove.