Ernie noticed the kittens re-emerging and ran at them again, caught one and threw it across the yard.

The Valiant man got out and said, ‘Oi!’

‘Fuck off. She’s got hundreds. They piss on everything.’

Val and Peter approached from Lanark III with their bags of groceries. Ernie saw them and drunk-jogged towards them. ‘Another litter. You said you were gonna do something.’

Val looked around: me, the Valiant man, a terrified David. She hurried over to him, straightened his hair and asked, ‘What’s he done?’

Ernie seemed to have sobered, or perhaps it was the grog talking. ‘You got at least three tabbies, and they’ve got litters, and then there’s the older ones.’

‘Ernie?’ I said.

‘Bloody catfights outside my winder every night. And that smell, when they mark their territory. Then they chase Fi-Fi round the yard, I seen it!’

‘No,’ Val said.

Ernie moved closer to her; Peter put down his groceries and moved between them.

‘I tried to grow a few vegies, but they dug ’em up. And they’re into our bins. You wanna come and clean that mess up?’

‘Mr Sharpe,’ Peter said, pleading his case.

‘And you can move, you little faggot.’ He pushed him aside. The Valiant man stepped forward; I stepped forward; Mr Sharpe was a few inches from Val. She shielded her face, lowered her head. David said, ‘Leave her,’ but no one could hear him over the voices, the chaos.

I took three steps, and was between them. ‘Quiet!’

The noise stopped.

‘Me and Curtis,’ I said. ‘We’ve got an idea.’

Ernie wasn’t worried about me—just the cats, running around the garden; Val, covering her face and mouth, like someone had died; David, helpless in his chair.

‘It’ll work,’ I said.

Ernie turned. ‘What will?’

And I explained.

A few minutes later, Ernie went inside.

‘Come on,’ I said to Val.

I waited in the hallway as Val and Peter helped David onto his bed to rest. The door was ajar, but I didn’t look. I heard Peter plug in the radio, and soon there was Chopin, and the blind was drawn and I felt that this room—bare-threaded and fibro, awkward corners with ill-fitting furniture—was much the same as mine: a place to go when everything else failed.

I studied photos: the brothers in a rowboat, life-jacketed and buck-toothed, waving to Val on the shore. Sitting in the kitchen, studying, and I could see the clumsy Indian’s grave marked in upper- and lower-case serif. Funny, really, how it all came down to a photo. Mr Bulljaw, flying through suburban air, admiring the house he’d built. Completing circuits circumscribed by the main road, the primary school, the substation at the end of the road. And next to this, the only photo of the man who was probably dad.

Gone.

Val came out and saw the problem. ‘Ssh, he needs a nap.’ Beside his brother, in a wicker chair, reading about Stephen Hero.

She took me into the kitchen, closed the door and said, ‘Cuppa?’