‘Well?’ Pop asked.

‘I thought we could drive them to the RSPCA.’

‘Bugger me.’ He opened the door, and the cats jumped out.

‘Fuckin’ hell,’ Ernie said.

‘Thought so,’ John said, smiling.

Pop turned to Ernie. ‘How about we use your car?’ He put his head in and smelled it. Retreated. Turned to me. ‘You can clean it, right?’ Then went back in.

I studied the picture of Dad. His arms, which might’ve been short, his hands, building our house, my room. I noticed the cornice, and wondered if he’d stuck it on; the window frame, if he’d cut it to size; the paint, even, which he might’ve applied. The house might’ve smelled of him; the cuts, the sanding, the joining were his. But if there was any pride, it had gone. When these mates (who were they? Ex-crims, slicked-hair and barbed wire tattoos?) sat around our dining room table, and said things like, You don’t need to worry about money, that’s easily taken care of.

I opened my wardrobe, lifted the jumble of shoes and deposited him in the mess of shoelaces and Fantale wrappers. He could wait there, in the same way I’d had to. He could think about what he’d put me through, and feel bad. He could come to realise that he should’ve replied: No, fellas, I got too much at stake. I’ll get a job, soon.

Pop, outside, setting the sprinkler on the lawn, turning it on, stopping it, moving it, trying again.

24/iii/84. The lawn isn’t so important. It’s the idea of lawn. Related to sport, in the suburbs. Running, sweating, recording scores, winner, loser, the team as tribe. One man as part of many, so that any failure (or insecurity) belongs to all, not one. Therefore, the possibility of bliss, each week …

Pop sat on the fence and watched the fountain. There were gaps, but if you watered enough it’d all get wet, surely. He liked watering. It didn’t make the grass any greener, because you couldn’t make summer any cooler, the sun any kinder.

When I checked again he was talking. Les and Wendy Champness, in their church clothes, clutching Bibles. I sat back, but peered from behind the blinds. Wendy said, ‘A big year, I suppose?’

‘Long as he doesn’t screw it up,’ Pop said. ‘Got a good head, make a good engineer, long as he doesn’t get any ideas.’

‘Like what?’

‘That guitar … writes his own songs. Thinks he’s John Lennon. Then there’s that mate of his. We wanna keep them apart.’

‘You can’t,’ Les said.

‘Clem reckons he’s made a list of everyone he hates.’

‘We on it?’ Wendy asked.

‘Then there’s the brother …’

They all bowed heads. Les said, ‘I just make sure we lock the place when we go out.’

‘Yes,’ Wendy said.

‘Off to church?’ Pop asked.

‘Yes,’ Les replied. ‘See if he’ll forgive us this week.’

‘For what?’

‘Nothing in particular, Doug. Them birds too noisy?’

‘Na, they’re okay.’