Pop was chewing, his teeth clunking. Old meat took a bit of work when your falsies didn’t fit.

‘How is it?’ Mum asked.

‘Good.’

That was it. All food was good. If someone’d gone to the trouble of cooking it, that’s what you said, no matter how awful it was.

Mum was curious. ‘He hit her?’

‘Pushed her.’

She took a moment to chew this over. ‘It’s a pity.’

‘What?’

‘Cos they’re Catholics. They’ll put up with anything. Pope won’t let them …’ She trailed off. There was no point getting Pop started on the Pope.

He said, ‘If she’s stupid enough to stay with him.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Mum argued.

‘It is.’ As he worked on a slippery potato.

‘Where would she go?’

‘There are places. Shelters.’

‘Not at her age.’

Pop gave her one of his are-you-stupid looks.

‘What?’

‘Nothin’.’ Conversation never went the way you wanted.

‘I asked her once,’ Mum said, as a sort of excuse for doing nothing. ‘Remember, Dad?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And she wouldn’t talk to me for months after. Then one day she was at the door with eggs, and it was all forgotten. So I never dared again.’

All this presented as proof of the importance of suburban autonomy. Every man and woman to his or her own quarter acre.

‘Who else you been lookin’ at?’ Jen asked.

‘Enough!’ Pop growled. He stared at his granddaughter. ‘He’s not hurtin’ no one.’

She was a small dog, deciding whether to bite his ankle or lick his hand.

Mum said, ‘Eat yer tea.’

Plates were cleaned, mostly. Pop mopped his gravy with bread; licked his fingers. With the food eaten, he returned to his paper. ‘Just lookin’ at the price of new cars.’

Mum started clearing the dishes. ‘We can’t afford a new car.’

‘Cheaper than fixin’ that thing.’

‘Well,’ she sang, from the kitchen, ‘that’s why we got you.’

‘Comes a point.’

And returned. ‘It’s that clapped out, is it?’

‘Wouldn’t get nothin’ for it, so Clem could have it.’

‘What about me?’ Jen asked.

‘You get the bus.’

The end of the Datsun? What was Pop thinking? It could be made to keep going. Forever, if need be. There was a fella round the corner with an old Buick that still purred. And Datsuns were better than Buicks, surely. They were excellent machines. Thrown together in an afternoon, admittedly, but thought out, so they’d last. Bowed wheels? So what? On Terman’s scale, genius or near genius (140 and over). What were Holdens? Dullness (80—90). It’d be like selling your own child. What was he saying? ‘I can look after it, Pop.’

He burped, and covered his mouth when it was too late. ‘We’ll see.’