THE FLUE on the pot-belly stove was playing up, and the kitchen smelled of smoke. And the fried fish and chips we’d had for Good Friday lunch. I was at the table, reading a collection of Sylvia Plath’s short stories, having put aside Gatsby. A best-of country-music cassette played softly. Nan counted fifty-cent pieces, which Pop had been collecting since last Easter, into five-dollar piles. She was wearing her best dress, white cotton embroidered with little violets. And too much of the flowery Dioressence perfume Stella had bought duty-free at the airport. Pop was snoring in an armchair, a can of beer still in his hand. Mum and Stella were discussing holidays — holidays Mum would never go on, of course. Mum oohed and aahed over Stella’s exotic destination suggestions, which she couldn’t afford, plus she could never leave the animals, the house, work, me, and a million other excuses for being afraid of life. Why didn’t Stella ever give up wheedling? Barky barked. A fire truck’s siren rang. Pop woke up and resumed drinking his beer.

‘The firemen are here!’ Mum rushed to the door.

Every Good Friday, four or five CFA fireys volunteered to drive around town and the outskirts, collecting donations to auction at the fire station for the annual Royal Children’s Hospital appeal. Stella already had beers out of the fridge for the big men as they loped into the kitchen, which suddenly seemed too small. The first three were older, retired and semi-retired volunteers. The fourth was younger; I’d seen him at Jay Jays. And the fifth — I sighed inwardly — was Christos. I marked the page and closed my book.

‘Pull up a pew, boys,’ Pop said as he carried in spare chairs from the dining room.

Nan made Christos, who had declined beer, a cup of tea.

He sat next to me and looked at the plate of leftover fish. ‘Didn’t know you were Catholic.’

‘We’re not. Nan used to be.’

‘Lapsed?’

I wasn’t sure what that meant. ‘Just doesn’t go to church anymore.’ Thank God. She’d dragged me along with her when I was little. A weird place.

‘Same. My family’s not that religious, but we still have some of the traditions.’

I nodded. We just liked fish and chips.

He tapped my book. ‘A good read?’

‘Yes.’

‘She was mad, wasn’t she?’

I scowled. ‘She was a great poet and writer.’

‘Still waiting to read your story.’

How the fuck did he remember that? I felt my cheeks redden.

‘Here you go, love.’ Nan handed Christos his cup of tea.

‘Thanks, gorgeous.’ He winked, and Nan’s smile created rarely seen dimples in her cheeks.

The rest of the crew shared anecdotes and jokes over their beers. The pet bird some hysterical woman had called them out to rescue from a tree. The firey who’d ‘played in a band’ at pubs and parties on his nights off, until one of his ‘performance’ venues caught fire; his crew had sprung him with an unexpected instrument out — moonlighting as a fireman strip-a-gram.

Pop told the story he told every year, about the bloke who’d done up one of the Pac King storage units like a posh hotel room, chandelier and whatnot, and lived in it for six months before he got caught.

Christos finished his tea quickly. ‘Come outside for a smoke?’ he said.

I was bored, so I agreed and followed him out the back.

He offered me a cigarette, took one for himself, and lit them both. Red and gold leaves from the maple tree flittered to the ground. I pulled my jacket tighter around me and leaned against the house.

‘Cold?’ Christos said, stepping closer.

‘No.’ I turned my face and blew smoke away from him, but the wind carried it back.

‘Want to come to Sandro D’Angelo’s party with me?’

‘When is it?’

‘First Friday in May.’

‘Can’t. Got a family thing on that night.’

His biceps muscle bulged through his shirt as he placed a hand, above me, on the weatherboards. There was a sweat stain in the armpit, and I could smell his leathery aftershave. He leaned down and tried to kiss me, like he had the right. Like Mr Haigh thought he’d had the damn fucking right. I pulled away.

‘What’s wrong?’ Christos said.

‘I’m not your girlfriend.’

I thought he’d accuse me of being a cock-teaser, like other boys had. But he just tilted his head and half-grinned, as though I’d issued him a challenge. I crushed out my cigarette in the yellow dirt, and rushed back inside, letting the flywire door slam behind me.

Pop was filling the fireys’ donation tin with the fifty-cent coins. Stella made a show of slipping in a fifty-dollar note. Nan handed over a plastic bag full of assorted items she’d knitted especially for the Good Friday auction.

I was still shaking from the confrontation out back with Christos when he re-entered the kitchen, all Cheshire Cat charming. Mum proudly handed him a box of old household items, which the fireys would probably snigger about and throw in a bin on their way back to the station.

‘Thanks, gorgeous,’ he said. ‘See you down the station for the auction tonight?’

‘Maybe,’ Mum said.

‘No,’ I said.

‘I’ll give you girls a call next week,’ he said.