I guessed it was Nan, dead ten years, in her little spot in the wall at Centennial Park. ‘I suppose she did buy all those encyclopedias,’ I said.

‘She did.’ He drew back, and took in most of the too-thin fag.

‘Every week, eh?’

No reply. But I saw her, hobbling back from the newsagent with that week’s volume. L—M. Lithuania. Limes. Presenting it to me and Jen and saying, Look after it. Only another five weeks. N—O. New Guinea was a revelation. No one bothered with bras. As well as which, they were good for projects. P—R. Perth. Princeton. Poland. A whole world beyond Lanark Avenue, described in the most superficial detail.

‘Do you want me to finish?’ I asked.

‘Wait.’

He was savouring the last few centimetres, but other things as well. Him and Nan, somewhere, fixing something, cooking it, polishing it.

I stood, pulled the darts from the board and started playing. They hit the iron, and clanged, but Pop didn’t say anything. The smoke was drifting, settling. I got a few in and said, ‘Wanna go?’

He glared at me like I was stupid, like I’d just ruined something important. So I tried again: three, five, double score. ‘Must be fifty degrees in here.’

No reply.

He was wearing heavy, torn overalls. But they were part of the performance. Hot, but you had to be hot. There was a car to be fixed, and this James woman wanted it back by next Monday. ‘We should go in, Pop.’

‘Not finished.’

His eyes returned to the roof, the tube trusses, the wires gaffer-taped on, finishing in power points that hung loose. The shelves with old carburettors and fuel lines and seatbelts. A workbench piled high with tools no one used.

‘What you thinkin’ about?’ I asked.

He studied the sheet. ‘What goes where.’

The expanding iron groaned, but he didn’t notice.

‘How many volumes were there?’ he said.

‘Eighteen.’

‘Right.’ And he was examining them too, Frankenstein and Henry Ford, holding a magneto, but mostly, Nan taking them out of the bag, handing them to us kids. ‘Eighteen … home needs a set of encylopedias. It’s civilising.’

Now I’d re-mastered the art of the dart throw: jerk, release, let the weight do the work. They were all sticking. Civilising. That was important, I guessed. Otherwise you just had four fibro walls and creaking floorboards.

He stepped on his smoke, glowing beside the dozens, hundreds, he’d ground in over the decades. Since he and Dad had built the shed. Which had come before the house, of course. Looking at the hundred nuts and bolts and sheets of iron. Thinking: Right, let’s go.