This was usually where the conversation stopped. Where she’d guess she’d given away enough. Occasionally it’d be, He was an angry man, and I’d say, How? And she’d say, Always saw the bad in everything, and everyone. You couldn’t live with it, Clem, believe me. And I’d say, He mustn’t have been that bad.

‘Just cos I’m a bit slack at driving.’

‘Careful … school crossing.’

I slowed, but it wasn’t slow enough. Then I said, ‘What sorta car did he have?’

She gave me the idiot look. ‘Who?’

‘Dad. When you met him. What did he drive?’

‘What’s it matter?’

‘I don’t know much about him.’

‘Trust me, it’s best that way.’

‘How?’

‘Enough.’

‘But I only asked what sorta car he drove.’

I could see her head gently shaking. ‘That’s not what you asked at all.’

‘It is.’

And what she didn’t say: car, life, behaviour—you want it all, don’t you? ‘An EH Holden.’

‘And didn’t you say he rode a motorbike?’

She turned. ‘What’s the sudden interest?’

‘Well, if you told me stuff, if you hadn’t thrown away all the …’ I stopped. I guessed it’d come back to bite me.

‘Don’t talk about what you don’t understand.’

‘But why did you throw away the pictures?’

‘Head home!’

I slowed, turned and did as I was told. ‘I think it’s a reasonable question. He was my father.’

‘You never hear Jen asking.’

‘That’s her problem. You say you don’t wanna talk about him, but I can only assume—’

‘You can’t assume anything! You weren’t there. You don’t know.’

Time to stop. We’d been here before. Now she would become irrational, sulk, refuse to talk to me, offer one syllable responses or ignore me all together. ‘Sorry.’

‘He never owned a motorbike.’

‘That’s all I wanted to know.’

‘That’s not all you wanted to know, is it?’

She had a point. But you couldn’t blame me for trying. ‘There’s a photo of him in Mrs Donnellan’s.’

‘Well, there you go—now you know.’

‘It’s not much to go on.’

Silence, as we cruised the main road.

At last she said, ‘It was him or me, and you wouldn’ta wanted to be brought up by him.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Trust me.’

And then I felt I couldn’t continue. Whatever the reason, I’d have to hear it from someone else.

She said, ‘Here,’ and indicated a space between two cars. ‘Try your reverse parallel.’

‘I know how to do it.’

‘Show me.’

I indicated, slowed and positioned myself. Reverse, angle, in, straighten. ‘Okay?’

‘You don’t have to get smart.’

‘I was just saying, is that okay?’ I pulled out, continued along a road lined by factories and warehouses, an industrial island in the middle of Windsor Park.

Then she remembered. ‘I was cleaning your room …’

‘I can do it.’

‘That book of yours.’

‘What?’

‘Where you write what you think of everyone.’

‘You read it?’

‘I’s hoping it was schoolwork, but no.’