Pop seemed confused, but not Alzheimer’s confused. More, what-have-you-done? Just when I got you a job, and gave you a bag of tools.

They left and Pop sat down and Mum came in to sniff about, then Jen, with her bleached fingertips. Mum said, ‘I told you, Dad.’

‘I showed him the map.’

No one spoke.

‘Mighta been nothin’ at all. Them mates of his, eh?’

‘Yeah, nothin’ at all,’ Mum said, going in, followed by Jen.

Pop repacked his toolbox, complete with map. As he worked he said, ‘Take this over to Anne, will yer?’ He handed me the bag.

‘Shouldn’t you hold onto them?’

‘Na. Once you give something, it’s given.’

May

The world could be made and unmade. The jungle was real, if you wanted it to be. The bricks could make yurts, or yachts, or the house you lived in. You signed a contract with yourself, to build, to nest. And years later when you found it under your bed, it was still waiting for the Idea. So I made a shed; a box for holding E-Type Jags, tools, old men and their dreams. It was made from all the bricks in the world, but none of them. It held everything, but nothing. Because it was the act of making that mattered. Like the mythical Wilf, raising high the roof beams, clicking his own blocks together on some long-forgotten Saturday morning.

Still a Saturday morning, and still kept inside by the weather. Vertical rain on our gasping roof. A gale working on the corners, lifting iron, as we waited for the crash. I stopped, studied Legoland and listened to the storm. Les ran out and covered his aviary with its tarp, strapped it down, and spoke to his birds. It’s passing, girls! As Wendy waited at the door and said, Come inside, it’s dangerous.

‘There she goes!’ Pop called.

He’d been pacing the house: around the lounge room, the dining room, the kitchen, following the borders, placing one foot in front of the other, and counting. He’d get to the end and say, ‘Sixty-two,’ and we’d just look at him. Then he’d say, ‘That doesn’t sound right,’ and start again, one foot at a time, estimating when something (the old bar, say) stuck out from the wall.

‘Clem!’

I ran out, and realised the real world was calling. Pop pointed out the back window and said, ‘We’re gonna have to fix it.’

The back fence had lost two of its sheets of iron, revealing wooden posts, and Frontline Ford.

‘Come on.’

I followed him out. He was still in his shorts, singlet and slippers. Mum called after us: ‘Dad, come and get something on,’ but he just waved her away.