...down Melbourne two years before and got run over and killed.

The hole was about eighteen feet across and lay just over the rim of a low hill that rose in a long gentle slope from the side of our fatal I always fished from the opposite side of the hole because about nine inches below its edge, at water level, a wide flat rock jutted out. You could put your feet on it while you sat on the grass.

Nobody knew how deep the hole was, so Dad had put a sign up saying DANGER NO SWIMMING. "Just to be on the safe side," he said, but the kids only ever swam in the creek anyway.

So there I was, sitting in the spring sunshine, hauling in the odd yabby, when my sister came bobbing up over the rim of the hill. She was red-faced and panting.

"Billy, it's nearly tea time and Mum says you've got to come home now!"

Patty was thirteen and had tickets on herself. She'd stand for ages in front of a mirror, stroking her ginger curls (auburn, she said) and making weird faces. She reckoned she was going to be a film star when she grew up. I told her when that happened I'd quit going to the pictures.

"Hurry up, dopey," she said.

"I was just coming anyway," I lied.

"Guess what," she said, looking important. "We've got a visitor for tea."

"Who is it?" I wasn't much interested but I hoped it was Alec. Alec was out nearest neighbour, an old friend of Dad's and a good bloke, a bit on the quiet side. He'd come over and dig the vegetable beds for us, spray the fruit trees and do all sorts of odd jobs that Mum would have had to pay someone else to do. Mum always asked him to stay for tea but he hardly ever did.

Patty wouldn't tell me who the visitor was. "That's for me to know and you to find out!" She stuck her tongue out and headed oft home.

I yelled "Fat bum!" after her from force of habit, then picked up my gear and the bag with yabbies in it and followed.

Outside out house a van was parked with the words:

J. FOLSOM ESQ. BED & TABLE LINEN, CASH OR CREDIT

written on its side. I'd seen the van at out house a few times before, it was one of many that used to go around the countryside selling household goods or small farm implements. Patty waited for me to catch up.

"It's him," she said. "The linen man!"

"The linen man what?"

She rolled her eyes upward, praying for patience, and spoke slowly and clearly. "The linen man is the vis-it-or!"

"Why? What's so special about him?"

She giggled and put her hand over her mouth, glancing sideways at the house. She leaned towards me and whispered, "I think him and Mum are keen on each other!"

It was as though she'd hit me. I could only stare at her. How could she say such a thing? How could she think, knowing Mum still loved and missed Dad, that she would ever be "keen" on somebody else! It wasn't true; Patty was being stupid.

"You're an idiot!" I said, when I found my voice.

She looked at me open-mouthed for a moment, then put on her grown-up act. "You're such a child, Billy Granger!" She turned...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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