Backyards are a map of life. As kids, we wander aimlessly, and everything’s so big. We jump off the roof of the tool shed, and because our ankles are strong, our legs supple, we just roll, then climb up and do it again. A few years later we’re too busy with what if?, the side door to the shed, to Datsunland, shotgun reloads and MP-40s (after watching another episode of Combat). The fence, the border with other countries, inner worlds collapsing under the weight of Mrs Donnellan’s weeds. Dogshit songlines to be followed, dead grass where Pop always parked cars, leaving engine blocks, piles of tyres and pipes that shouldn’t be thrown out because you never know when they’ll come in handy.

Maps, and hikes through wattle jungles that were only an hour, or afternoon, but were all hours, and every afternoon. Trails that lingered, although they were overgrown with experience, bitterness, an unemployed indifference that was always calling, Back, back, remember how there was a tiger here?

I was still there, putting the old pool ladder over the back fence, climbing into the lane behind Frontline Ford, around the corner and out onto North East Road. I went into Don’s fish shop. Don-the-Greek, Pop called him, because if you were a wog you needed to be reminded, and we had to remember. Wogs didn’t live in Gleneagles. It was likely (Pop had said) Don lived in Croydon, and commuted to his hot little shop along the road of many Kingswoods. Not that we didn’t have any ethnics. A girl called Alice Wong, who lived with a hundred other Wongs in a brick house on Dictionary Road.

‘Hi,’ I said.

Don didn’t acknowledge me; never had. A childhood of empty bottles, five-cent refunds, so if you got ten you could afford a bag of mixed lollies. So, he’d probably worked out I was never going to make him rich. The Australasian Post for Nan, when she was alive. Walking home with a handful of Gold Coast meter maids in too-small bikinis and cowboy hats. ‘Minimum chips, please.’

He gave me a minimum chips look (has-it-all-come-to-this?). Eighty cents’ worth, as the Dukes tumbled inside a telly perched on top of the fridge.

I sat and waited. More Posts, Wheels, and a view of an empty fish tank that had never seen water. A good idea, I suppose, when he opened. A great white moment. But getting around to things, that was the problem. Filling it, buying the fish, and how was that going to boost profits? All people wanted was flesh, and chips, and maybe a hint of the exotic with a pineapple fritter. For me, a potato fritter. That was value for money.

Don shook his basket and watched the chips fry, waiting for the perfect shade of brown. The other hand on his hip. A urine-coloured apron and shirt open to his breastbone, revealing a proper Mediterranean rug and a gold Christopher. Nine o’clock shadow and gold fillings. Which is why I loved to sit and watch Don cook my chips.