‘Don’t apologise to me. Apologise to my wife.’

Before the man could speak again, Ray grabbed his arm and dragged him over to Abby. His girlfriend screamed hysterically from inside the car.

Shouts of protest erupted around them.

‘Take it easy, he’s just a kid!’

‘Let him go, someone call the cops!’

‘Are you fucking crazy, mate? He’s half your size!’

Ray couldn’t seem to hear any of them. He was somewhere beyond them, beyond reason. The driver of the Benz flailed beside him. He wasn’t fighting back, thank God.

The driver turned to Abby. He was sobbing. Fear, deep and resonating and traumatic, was etched on his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he moaned. ‘I’m … I’m sorry.’

The shouts around them grew louder. She grabbed hold of Ray’s free hand, squeezed it hard, dug her fingernails into his skin, and said, ‘Think about what you’re doing.’

Ray swung his head around to face her. His face was twisted with the same maniacal grimace she’d see again seventeen years later, as he stood over a fallen gum tree and told her to back the fuck off.

‘Babe,’ she said, as calmly as she could. ‘You need to stop.’

Somehow, amid the shouts from the crowd and the honking of built-up traffic, Ray heard her. Slowly, his jaw relaxed, focus returned to his eyes and the Switch was reset. He came back to her.

Ray let the man go. They didn’t exchange any insurance details, but there wasn’t much damage done to the Datsun anyway. She doubted the driver of the Benz would ever rear-end anyone again.

Ray and Abby drove home without another word.

Later, as they lay on top of the covers of their bed, watching the ceiling fan turn, Ray told her he was sorry.

In the dull light of the bedside lamp, he had looked lost and childish. More scared, even, than the man in the street had looked.

‘What was that?’ Abby asked. ‘I’ve never seen you lose control like that before.’

He blamed his outburst on the stress of being a new father. The false labour had shaken him. He was tired, that was all.

‘Promise me nothing like that will ever happen again,’ she had told him.

‘Ab, you don’t need to worry about me.’

‘You scared the shit out of me tonight,’ she said. ‘So promise.’

‘I promise,’ he said.

She kissed him softly on the mouth, then rolled onto her side, partly because it was the only way she could get comfortable, and partly because she didn’t want to look at her husband anymore that night.

She lay awake for a long time, long after she turned