Grandpa says his grandfather was only the second man in town to own a car, a Buick, he says, shiny black with big running boards and velvet seats, really posh, except he was accustomed to his horse and cart. So when Grandpa’s grandfather drove to church with the family he forgot it was an automobile he was driving, and to stop it he called out “Whoa! Whoa!” and pulled on the steering wheel. The Buick stopped all right, halfway through the wall of the shop next to the church.

“Does Dad know that story?” I ask.

“Yep, he’s heard it.”

“Why hasn’t he ever told it to us?”

“People remember what they need to remember,” says Grandpa, rubbing his chin exactly the same way Dad does. “The rest slips through, which is just as well or our brains would self-destruct. Your dad was always quiet. Me and your grandma wanted a whole heap of kids but we just got this one boy, kind of gentle, always thinking. Don’t know where he got that from.”

I’m about to agree with him but I’m not sure how he’ll take it, so I just nod. Besides, I wish he’d say more about the flattened grass that looks like newly cut hay. We are sitting in two metal folding chairs in front of the garage. The shadows are long and the air is full of dust and insects, bees flying home, sandflies and midges, big bluebottles that gather on the kitchen door because they can smell roast dinner. I say to him, “Dad did tell me about the wasps.”

“Too early for them yet. They come late summer, and your dad was scared of them. He never got stung, but he was with me when one of those assassins got on my coffee cup. My lip swelled like a ripe marrow.”

He pulls at his upper lip as though checking it is still there. “Bees sting once. Wasps go into a stabbing frenzy. Tell me, boyo, does your dad ever sing?”

I think he says “sting”, and then I realise he’s changed the subject. “Sometimes.”

“He’s always had a good voice. Used to march with us in the Vietnam War protests, serious little kid, seven or eight, singing at the top of his lungs, We shall overcome…”

“Dad was in a protest march?”

“A lot of us were. Good days. Nights of music, meeting in coffee bars by candlelight, playing guitars and drinking red wine. Your father would go to sleep with his head on the table, wrapped up in someone’s coat. As for the marches, you wouldn’t believe it, but people chucked stuff at us, tomatoes, eggs, sometimes worse. Called us communists.” Grandpa laughs and slaps his leg. “Well, we did live in a commune.”

This is something I do know. “In a geodesic dome made of metal and plastic.”

“Metal and glass,” he says. “Where’d you get the plastic idea?”

It was my father’s description, but I say, “I don’t know. Was it comfortable?”

“Nope. It was damned uncomfortable, but we were young then, and you know something, laddie? When you’re young you put a romantic spin on everything.”

“I don’t,” I tell him.

He puts his hand over mine. “Give yourself time. If you’re lucky it’ll happen. Right now, my stomach thinks my throat’s cut. That chicken smells about ready. Wouldn’t you say it was time for the F word?”

He keeps saying that and it’s so tedious, but I smile and nod. I’m hungry too, and he’s right about the chicken. The roasting smell is making the flies go crazy. I’m still waiting for him to comment on the flat grass. Although I did an exceptionally good job he doesn’t seem to even notice.

There is no mention of it, but as we go up the back steps, he jerks his thumb over his shoulder and says, “If you can drive that car, you can drive anything.”

We go in the house. I reckon you could cook a dinner on the table, the dining room is so hot, and without exaggeration, I feel as though I have to cut the air into chunks to breathe it. Grandma says, “We can’t open any windows or doors because of these rotten flies, but they’ll go when it gets dark and then we can air the house.”

“Why don’t you have fly screens?” I ask.

“We did,” says Grandma. “Sea air rusts them after a couple of years. I’ve got more to spend money on than fly warfare.”

At the mention of money I look at Melissa and wonder if we should say something about you-know-what, but the moment passes and Grandpa is offering to make the gravy.

There is something different about my sister. When I think about it, I realise her hair is hanging straight down her shoulders and she has no war paint on. “You had a bath?” I whisper.

“The water’s hot,” she whispers back.

“Everything’s hot. I’d love a cold shower – if only there was a shower.”

She leans closer. “There’s something you should know, Will. I think Grandma was lying about the sharks.”